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ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



The Zigzag Series, 



HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS' IN EUROPE. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC LANDS. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ORIENT. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE OCCIDENT. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN NORTHERN LANDS. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN ACADIA. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE LEVANT. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN INDIA. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES. 

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE BRITISH 
ISLES. 

ZLGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE GREA T NORTH- 
WEST. 

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIA. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 
ZIGZAG JOURNEYS ON THE MEDITER- 
RANEAN. 

ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



ESTES AND LAURIAT, Publishers, 

BOSTON, MASS. 



Zigzag Journeys 

IN THE WHITE CITY. 



WITH 



Visits to the Neighboring Metropolis. 



BY 

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. 












FULLY ILLUSTRATED. 



BOSTON: 
ESTES AND LAURIAT, 

PUBLISHERS. 
\ 






Copyright, 1894, 
By Estes and Lauriat. 



All Bights Reserved. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



PREFACE, 




HE last Zigzag volume sought to explain the American 
consular service, and to relate wonder-tales told in 
consular offices. This volume seeks to illustrate the 
White City, and to show what might have been seen 
at the Fair that would be of service to patriotic 
American holidays, the Village Improvement Societies, and social 
life, and especially to commend the work of the Folk-Lore Societies, 
and to give the history of the White Bordered Flag. 

I have made the Folk-Lore Congress a leading feature of the book 
for story-telling purposes, but give to the Wliite Bordered Flag the 
place of the crowning glory of the Fair, as the new education of Peace 
now demands the attention of the people, and especially of societies 
and schools. The recent resolution of the British Parliament calling 
for a Peace Commission between America and England to settle 
international disputes, and the worthy response of the President in 
his last Message, would seem to be a promising and perhaps decisive 
advance* towards the union of the Anglo-Saxon race in the cause 
of Peace. The history of the Peace movement in England and in 
America has now a new interest, and this, amid the usual melange of 
stories which I have used in this series of books, I have sought to 
illustrate and explain. 



VI il PREFACE. 

" What does the memory of the White City yield to our new 
patriotic national life ? " 

This question, so far as it concerns young peoples' societies, we 
have sought to answer. The White City was the prophetic vision 
of the ages, and was itself prophetic of the new eras of fraternity 
and peace. Its memory is a delight, and to write of it is a pleasure. 
To the American people it will ever be revelation : " See that thou 
makest all things after the pattern that was showed to thee on the 
Mount." 

This is the sixteenth volume of this series of books. In other 
volumes we have travelled in fancy over the world of stories ; in this 
we go to the White City by the Lake, and meet the story-telling 
world as it came to us. 

I am indebted to Messrs. Harper and Bros, for permission to 
republish " The Last Song of the Robin," which I wrote for the 
Thanksgiving number of the "Weekly," 1893; and " The Old Smoke 
Chamber," which appeared in the Christmas number, 1888 ; and 
to the " Youth's Companion " for like courtesy. Several popular 
authors have given me helps, and they are duly acknowledged in 
their places. As in the former volume, Miss Florence Blanchard 
has afforded me assistance, and in this volume has rendered me 
much service in preparing the parts on the History of Peace. 

The " Chink, Chink " story was first published in " St. Nicholas," 
and the poem entitled " The White Bordered Flag " was read at the 
Fair Auxiliary by the author at the opening of the Congress of 
Representative Youth. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter P AGE 

I. The Marlovves at Home 13 

II. The Story of the Opening of the World's Columbian 

Exposition 47 

III. The Folk-Lore Society's Queer Stories ....... 59 

IV. The Story of the Building of the White City .... 89 

V. Chicago and its Makers, — the City of the Twentieth 

Century . 98 

VI. The Marlovves' First Day at the Fair. — The most Useful 

Thing at the Fair 118 

VII. The Funniest Thing at the Fair 137 

VIII. The Grandest Scene of all 171 

IX. Folk-Lore Tales in the old Colonial Kitchen .... 184 

X. The Folk-Song Festival 218 

XI. What Mr. Marlowe found to take Home in the State 

Buildings 237 

XII. The Folk-Lore Meetings at the Art Palace 281 

XIII. Night in the Court of Honor 310 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page 
West Lagoon, Wooded Island, and Man- 
ufactures Building .... Frontispiece . 

Fine Arts Building 14 

Agricultural Building 17 

The Post Office 21 

Manufactures Building and Electric Foun- 
tain . .27 

The Forestry Building 33 

Entrance to Egyptian Theatre, Street in 

Cairo 39 

Electricity and Mines Building ... 47 
Administration Building and Court of 

Honor . 48 

Opening Day Procession ..... 49 

Street Scene, — Opening Day .... 52 

Administration Building 53 

Machinery Hall 57 

Port of Chicago 59 

Government Building 60 

The Agricultural Building ..... 61 

Macmonnies (Columbian) Fountain . . 63 

The Peristyle 64 

Chicago Hotels 65 

Government Building .68 

The Transportation Building .... 69 

The Horticultural Building 73 

Machinery Hall 76 

Mines and Mining Building .... 81 

Utah State Building 85 

Madison Street 87 

The Lake Front 89 

Statue of the Republic and Manufactures 

Building 91 

The Art Palace 93 

Michigan Avenue 96 

Chicago in 1830 98 



Chicago from the Auditorium . . . . 

La Salle 

Illinois Central Terminus and the Harbor 

Produce Exchange 

State Street 

Mr. Potte* Palmer 

Mrs. Potter Palmer 

Residence of Mr. M<Veach ..... 

Great Union Stock- Yard 

Residence of Mr. Kimball 

High Buildings in Chicago 

A Ten-Story House 

A Pork-Packing Establishment . . . 

Mr. P. D. Armour 

A Pig Killer 

Residence of Mr. Potter Palmer '. . . 

Mr. Pullman 

Residence of Mr. Pullman 

Byzantine Door of the Transportation 

Building 

A View of Midway, looking East . . 

German Village 

Ferris Wheel 

Captive Balloon 

Looking Southeastfrom the Ferris Wheel 
Oriental Wedding Procession .... 

Hagenback's Museum 

Irish Village, — Donegal Castle . 

Horticultural Building 

The Whaleback Passenger Steamer . 

Atlas 

Water Tower 

Lincoln Park 

Parade of Actors and Oriental Band on 

Street of Cairo 

Damascan Swordsmen 



Page 

99 

[01 

[03 

[06 

[07 

[09 

[09 

10 

1 1 

13 

13 

14 

14 

15 

15 

16 

16 

17 

18 
'9 

T22 

23 

[25 
26 

27 
[29 
[ 3 
[31 
133 

'35 
137 
'38 

'39 
[41 



12 



ILLUSTRA TIONS. 



Page 

The Egyptian Donkey Boys, mounted . 143 

Corner of Mosque, in Cairo Street . . 147 

Detail of the Golden Door 151 

The Boat-Landing and the Lake, from 

the Liberal Arts Building .... 155 

Administration Building 159 

Egyptian Juggler 165 

Fisheries Building 171 

Administration Building 172 

The Electrical Building 175 

Agricultural Building, from Electricity 

Building 179 

Convent of La Rabida 181 

Caraval Santa Maria 182 

Transportation Building 184 

New England Kitchen 185 

Mrs. Preston, New England Kitchen, 

Midway 187 

New England Girls and their Chaperon, 

from the New England Kitchen . . 188 
Detail of Statue, south of Manufactures 

Building 191 

Irish Village, — Blarney Castle . . . 193 

Scene in Old Vienna 196 

Interior View, Manufactures Building . 199 

Spanish Building 203 

United States Battle-ship " Illinois " . 205 

Columbian Fountain and Court of Honor 213 

Mr. Field 218 

Hungarian Dancers 219 

Musicians from Moorish Theatre . . 223 



Page 

Electricity and Manufactures Building . 233 

Kansas Building 238 

Florida Building 239 

California State Building 241 

Illinois State Building 243 

Woman's Building 245 

Chinese Theatre 248 

A Family of Berberines in the Street of 

Cairo, — Midway 253 

Masonic Temple 259 

Japanese Ho-o-den 265 

City Hall 273 

Ceylon Building 277 

Manufactures Building 281 

Clock Tower in the Manufactures Build- 
ing 282 

French Department of the Manufactures 

Building . 283 

French Colonies Building 283 

Horticultural Building and Woman's 

• Building 297 

Draw-bridges 3° [ 

Stock- Yards 3°5 

Peristyle, from the Agricultural Building 311 
The Electrical Building on a Moonlight 

Night 313 

German Building 315 

Javanese Fiddler, from the Midway . . 316 

The Ferris Wheel at Night . . . . 317 

Administration Building by Night . 319 

India Building: 3 2 ° 



Zigzag Journeys in the White City. 



CHAPTER I. 




THE MARLOWES AT HOME. 

ANTON MARLOWE was the Superintendent of 
the Public Schools, and the President of the Folk- 
Lore Society in his native town, which consisted of 
a New England village surrounded by a wide extent 
of country. He was usually the chairman of the 
Committee on Patriotic Celebrations ; and he took 
an active interest in the Society for Schoolhouse Decorations, and 
in the Society for the Improvement of the Country Roads. He was 
a Sam Adams-like man, always busy in some plan for the public 
good. His father was Ephraim Marlowe, the Quaker, and he had a 
son named Ephraim, a lad some fifteen years old, — " old Ephraim and 
young Ephraim," the townspeople called them. 

The Village Improvement and Folk-Lore Society, as an active 
organization in the old town had come at last to be called, passed 
some singular resolutions in the spring of 1S93. This society had 
begun as a village improvement effort ; but it had found so many old 
traditions and legends in its historic work that it had added to it the 
Historic Society, under the name of the Folk-Lore Society. The 
workers in this organization had given a number of entertainments 



14 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



on the evenings of patriotic holidays, and had saved several hundred 
dollars for public use. Manton Marlowe had been the leading- 
mind in these societies. He had arranged the entertainments for the 
holiday evenings, had conducted excursions into historic fields, had 
been a leader in the repair of old roads and the marking of historic 
places. He was a good story-teller, and he had collected the old 





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FINE ARTS BUILDING. 



traditions of the place, and related them in story-telling lectures to the 
last society. 

When the Village Improvement and Folk-Lore Society met in 
May, it greatly surprised good Mr. Marlowe. It resolved : — 

(i) "That the efforts of our worthy President merit practical appreciation; 
(2) "That the Society appropriate one hundred and fifty dollars from its 
treasury to give him an excursion to the World's Columbian Exhibition; 



THE MARLOWES AT HOME. 



15 



" That he be asked to accept this as an expression of esteem, and that he be 
respectfully requested to answer, on his return, the following questions : 

(1) " What was the most amusing thing that you saw at the Fair? 

(2) "What was the most useful exhibit that you saw at the Fair? 

(3) " What was the grandest sight that you saw at the Fair? 

(4) " And what was the most useful lesson of the Fair? " 

Mr. Marlowe listened to these resolutions with amazement. As 
President of the Society, he left the chair, and the Vice President put 
the resolutions to vote. 

" As many as are in favor of these Resolutions, whose purpose 
is to send our President to the World's Columbian Exhibition, that 
he may see the Fair for us, and return to us with new plans for the 
improvement of our town and its social life, please say 'Ay.'" 

Every voice in the Society shouted "Ay." 

" It is a unanimous vote," said the Vice President. " Mr. Marlowe, 
we cannot go to the Fair, so we have selected you to see the Fair for 
us, and to report what you may find there that may be of use to a 
country town. Will you serve the Society ? " 

Mr. Marlowe stood silent for a time, and then said with a chokine 
voice : — 

"Yes, yes, my friends, if you put it in that way! My heart is full, 
but I promise you all that I will put my conscience into my eyes. I 
will use my eyes for the town and not for myself. I would do any- 
thing to advance the interests of this grand old town. Let me see, 
what is it I am to do ? Report to you what is the funniest, most use- 
ful, and the grandest thing that I see at the Fair, and all that I find 
that can be of benefit to us here. Yes, my friends, I will go. I thank 
you for your good will and confidence with all my heart ! " 

One of the Directors of the principal railroad to California via 
Chicago, was present. He arose and said : — 

" Mr. Marlowe, your interest in the Village Improvement Society 
was the influence that led our company to extend a branch line here. 



1 6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

I will give you two passes to Chicago and return. You may like to 
take one of your family with you." 

When Man ton Marlowe returned home that night, he was a happy 
man. His public spirit had returned to bless him. His wife was an 
invalid, and she could not go to the Fair. His son Ephraim wished 
to go. He had heard what the Society had clone. 

So Ephraim sat down by his father, and expected to receive the 
invitation. 

It was a mellow May evening. As the two sat side by side, old 
Ephraim came slowly into the room and joined them. 

" Manton, 1 ' said the latter, " I am an old man." 

" Yes, father, but not very old." 

" I can travel on the cars." 

" Yes, as well as I." 

" I never been to many places in my long life." 

" No. I wish that you could go to the Fair, father." 

" Manton, I want to go. Why, I have been preaching peace in 
the old Meeting-House on the Hill for forty years, and I would feel as 
though I could depart in peace, if I could only attend the meetings of 
the Peace Congress. I have been reading about that proposed Con- 
gress, and dreaming about it." 

" Young Ephraim," said Mr. Marlowe, " I know that you want to 
go to the Fair ; but would you not rather have grandfather go?" 

" Yes, father," said the manly boy, " I shall be happy if he can go.'' 

" Thou hast well spoken," said old Ephraim. " Thy heart is right, 
and I can see that it is already consecrated. But why can we not 
both go ? I have a little money of my own. I will pay my own way. v 

" Oh, grandfather, and we will see the world all living together ir 
peace in one white city." 

' Yes, boy. I have seen it in visions. I never expected to see it ir. 
the flesh. What have you to say, Manton ? " 

"We will all go. The papers say that the White City by the Lake 



r 







THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 



19 



is the most beautiful sight that ever arose in this world under the sun. 
I am glad that we can see it together." 

" I am told," said the old man, " that the white-bordered flag is to 
be carried there. That flag is the beginning of the peace of the world. 
To see it would turn this old heart into a psalm. It would make me 
sing like the men of old, Quaker that I am! " 

The sunset lit up the far hills and faded, and the three sat together 
long into the evening, planning their journey to the White City. 

Mr. Marlowe was a popular story-teller. His love of folk-lore 
stones had given him his place as leader of the Village Improve- 
ment Society. He liked to relate stories in which old-time charac- 
ters could be imitated by voice and manner. We shall use in this 
volume several stories of this kind, as he told them at some folk-lore 
social gatherings at the Fair. 

A favorite story of his, " The Old Auctioneer," or " The Last Song 
of the Robin," is a specimen of his peculiar stories, and a picture of 
that department of folk-lore called the " Folk-Lore Story." We give 
it here : — 

THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 

" SUSAN, I can see that old farm now in my mind's eye, — the country road, 
the guide-post on which was printed ' 20 Miles to Boston.' I can see the painted 
tavern, and the dark pond where the mysterious travellers were killed. I can 
fancy hubbly oak-trees; the way-side orchard; the corner under the trees 
where the white avens bloomed; the balm bed, the red-pepper patch, the lilac- 
bushes, and the bouncing-bet. I can hear conquiddles, as we called the 
bobolinks, as they used to fly and sing in the windward meadows ; red-winged 
blackbirds in the woodland pastures ; martin birds under the eaves ; and the 
first song of the robin as he came out of the woods, like the dove from Noah's 
Ark, to see if the dry land had appeared. And, Susan, I can hear the last song 
of the robin." 

The old man's eye looked over the great prairie, which spread out before 
him like a sea. 



20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" It did n't look like that, Susan, where the sun rises and sets in the same 
corn-field, and the rain-plover cries, and all is so wide, wide, wide. 

" Susan, I 've been thinking. I never told you much about my twin sister, 
who lives on the old farm now on the North River, in Massachusetts. She 's 
seventy-five years old, come yesterday. I 've had a letter from her. She 's in 
trouble, Susan. I feel that I ought to go to her, old as I am. I do, Susan." 

"You are too old, grandpa." 

" The old place is about to be sold at auction. She says so in the letter, 
written in the same hand that we used to write together when we sat side by 
side on the wooden bench at school. She says that the poorhouse will soon be 
her home, but that there is One coming round soon who will settle all things. 
She means, Susan — Well, you know who it is that soon comes round and 
settles all things when a person passes the shadow of seventy years. I am able 
to go, Susan, and I must go. Somehow I can feel invisible hands pushing me 
like, as of the old folk, and I have dreamed twice of the last song of the robin. 

"What was that? Well, well, the robins used to sing their last songs in the 
Indian-summer weather, before they went to their covers in the deep woods for 
the long winter. It was peculiarsome like. It was when the apples and leaves 
were falling, leaving bare the nests in the trees ; after the wild-geese had flown 
over, and the partridges had begun to fly. I 've heard 'em many a time. 
I would like to hear them once more, as Fused to hear them among the red 
trees by the old cranberry meadows. You may think me queer, Susan, and 
haunted like; but I long to see that old slanting roof just once more, and my 
twin sister, who was rocked in the same cradle with me, and is now in sorrow, 
and to hear that last song of the robin. It seems as though at times I could 
hear that now." 

He listened. There was a murmur of the wind in the cottonwood-trees. 

" It is comin' Thanksgiving, Susan. It makes me think of the folks and 
times that are gone ; of the succotash, pandowdy, and puddings, and pumpkin 
pies. There never was no such days anywhere like those, and my hungry heart 
aches to spend one more Thanksgiving with my sister Susan. The last one 
I spent there was sort of queer. The old minister he ate of all the dishes in the 
kitchen before the table was set, and then there were so many of them that it 
made him heavy like, and he fell asleep saying grace, and we sat there feeling 
awkward like, and the victuals all got cold. Oh, how I would like to talk over 
those old times with Susan, my old sister Susan ! 

"And, Susan, my little granddaughter, I hid some letters behind a board in 
the haunted garret under the candle-poles, and there 's going to be a vendue, 
and I want to see them once again. That was more than fifty years ago. 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROB TV. 



23 



" Haunted garret? Such a place seems queer to you, does it, Susan? We 
have no haunted garrets here out West. All the old houses and farms in the 
Cape towns had their ghost-stories, and a family couldn't have amounted to 
much who had n't been followed by a ghost sometime." 

It was near sunset. Like a high arch of glory rose the red light in the 
western air, — liquid rubies and gold. Against the sunset stood the black out- 
lines of some Lombardy poplars and cottonwood-trees, and under the trees 
were three graves. 

The old man's face turned towards the graves. He sat musing for a time 
in deep thought. The wind rippled through the faded leaves, and scattered 
them about the graves. 

" Susan ! " 

"Well, grandpa?" 

" Susan ! " 

" Yes, I hear. What is it? Grandpa, I was thinking of the haunted garret." 

" Your grandmother and I brought those trees here. They were twigs then, 
and she was a bride. I brought her here some years after I took my claim. 
Now her grave is there, and the graves of two of our own little ones. I shall 
come back again. You and rny sister Susan are all that is left me now, — just 
old Susan and young Susan. She needs me. He will take care of you. If I live 
a week, I am going to rocky old New England once more. I hear voices calling 
me sometimes, and then there drifts into the air that last song of the robin, 
peculiarsome like." 

" What were the letters you hid behind the board, grandpa? " 

" In the haunted garret? " 

"Yes." 

" I may tell you sometime. It is a long story. It was in the garret where 
I once saw the ghost of old Rachel, who ground red peppers with a calash over 
her head. They used to hear her wandering about at night in the herb-room, 
pounding, pounding, pounding with a pestle. What times those were ! " 

" I, too, would like to see the old house, and my great-aunt, and eat 
a Thanksgiving dinner with some of the good old families. What do you say, 
grandpa? " 

"You would? Well, you may go too. You '11 hear them, all those ghost- 
stories and wonder-tales, right where they happened." 

The girl's face brightened up with pleasure, followed by a doubtful shadow, 
as of ghostly thoughts. She was still thinking of the haunted garret. 

The old man sat dreaming again. He at last said, " Susan ! " 



24 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

"Yes." 

"Susan!" 

"Yes, I am listening." 

" I have a secret for you." 

"Yes? Let me hear." 

" We will not let the folks know that we are coming. We will meet 'em as 
strangers like. Old Susan will not know me — likely not. Not know me ? and 
we were born on the same day and rocked in the same cradle. It takes two to 
be happy always, and I used to be happy with her." 

The girl sat thinking. 

" Grandpa ! " 

But the old man's mind was in New England now. He was listening in 
dreams to his sister's voice, and perhaps the last song of the robin. 

" Grandpa ! " 

" Yes, Susan." 

" Why could we not bring her back with us? " 

" The old well is there, and the walls and the rooms where the folks all were 
married and died. We could not bring her back. There are some things that 
money cannot do. We might bring her body back; only that, Susan." 

" But those things are to be sold? " 

"Yes; but they are there." 

" And we will be there too, on Thanksgiving Day." 

"Yes; under the old roof on which I used to hear the rain fall in the warm 
summer eves." 

The old man's face contracted and turned away. He was crying. 

" I have not cried before for years, Susan. Sing me that old song that your 
mother used to sing when you was a baby. They called it ' Ben Bolt.' " 

A piano stood in one corner of the room, and over it soon floated the words 
of the haunting sone: 



" Oh, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt, 
Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown ? " 



At the words, 



" In the old church-yard by the orchard, Ben Bolt, 
In the valley so sweet and so low," 

the old man bent over his cane, and great tears again ran down his cheeks. 

" I used to sing, Susan, and play the violin in the old house at home. Father 
made me promise not to take that with me. He said it would hinder me. He 
meant well." 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 25 

Susan sang: 

" But of all the boys that were schoolmates then, 
There is left but you and me." 

Then there fell a silence, and the western twilight deepened, and the walls of 
the sun seemed melting down. 

"Thank you, my girl. That reminds me of the old times and the last song 
of the robin." 

They sat in silence, save that the west winds rustled amid the withering leaves 
of the old cottonwoods. 

One cool day in September Susan alighted from her horse after a long ride 
over the prairie. She was met at the door by her grandfather. 

"I 've brought you another letter from the old home," she said. " It is in 
aunt's hand, and I think that she is in very great trouble. See ! it is blotted." 

The old man put on his spectacles, and held the letter close to his eyes. 
" Yes, she is in trouble, you may depend. I knew how it would be. Her hand 
shook when she wrote that. Let me open it." 

He sat down on the rude piazza and read the letter, rocking at times 
nervously. 

" Yes, she is in deep trouble, sure enough, Susan. We must go. I have n't 
done just right, Susan, by your aunt ; I have n't, now. When I was young, I 
used to climb trees, and so hide from her and leave her, and she used to cry. 
I can see her now. I do feel as though I had been climbing a tree all of my 
life and hiding and leaving her. It did n't add to the stature of Zaccheus to 
climb a tree, but it did add to his reputation. So it is with me, Susan. I 've 
gained some property by immigrating here to the prairies, but I am Zaccheus 
still, and I hear a voice calling me to come down. That 's the way we used to 
talk in the old New England times, in figures like, when I thought the tree-tops 
reached clear up to the sky." 

" What does aunt write, grandpa? " 

"The old place is going to be sold by vendue, and the debts will take 
all — all." 

" What is a vendue? " 

" Oh, it 's like this. When property people lose almost all they have, and 
can't pay their mortgages, then comes the sheriff, and after him a man whom 
w r e call an auctioneer, and the auctioneer cries ' Going, going, gone,' and when 
he gets through there 's not so much as a birch broom left." 

The old man rocked uneasily. 



2 6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" It 's my fault, Susan. I want to tell you, though I do it to my shame, 
what a woman your old aunt is. She always put a person's feeling above 
money. You see, it was this way : I had a fever to go West, and to marry, and 
Susan she wanted to marry a young farmer who owned an old Cape farm. But 
one of us had to stay with the folks. She was tender-hearted, Susan was, and 
she used to love me more than her own life, — she always loved others more than 
herself, — and one day, under the apple-trees, she said to me, ' Martin,' said 
she, ' you may go West, and I 'II live with father and mother.' When I came to 
be propounded for the Church, my conscience troubled me so that I made a 
covenant with myself that I would always be true to my twin sister Susan. And 
I nailed that covenant behind a board in the garret. And now I am going back 
to find it, and to keep it. Just hear this letter. She says : — 

" ' Mother's long sickness caused the mortgage, and the interest on it grew. 
Now they are going to sell the old place at vendue, and I '11 have to go to the 
poorhouse, or else live on the church, which is poor. Even my Thanksgiving 
turkeys will be sold! 

" Did you hear that, Susan? I remember how we used to go together hunt- 
ing turkeys' nests when we were young. A turkey is a sly bird, and hides her nest, 
and always goes an opposite way when she starts for her nest. How we used 
to follow the turkeys slyly amid the dews, wild roses, and laurels, so as to find 
their nests ! And now even her turkeys are to be sold ! Susan, I feel as though 
I had n't done as I ought to. I must go back East, and I will do the right 
thing in the end. I will keep the covenant. It was Susan that gave me a 
chance in life. I can hear the old folks that are dead callin', ' Come home, 
come home ; ' seems as though I could." 

" Grandfather, have you any spare money? " 

" What makes you ask that, child? " 

" Could n't you buy the old place and give it to her? " 

" To Susan ? To Susan ? Why, bless your heart, that 's just what I 've just been 
thinking ! If I ought to — and a man ought to do what he ought, or he '11 feel 
just as he had n't ought to, and I feel that way now. No, Susan, none of those 
auction-attending folks shall eat my sister Susan's turkeys this year. We'll get 
ready and go. You never saw the sea, did you? " 

" No ; nor old houses with ghost-rooms. It all seems like a story." 

" Nor rocks, nor walls, nor great apple-orchards, nor woods of old oak-trees? " 

" No, nor a Thanksgiving — a real true one, grandpa." 

"Well, child, you shall see a real old New England Thanksgiving this year, 
and I think it will be one well worth seeing. We '11 roast those turkeys our- 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 



2 9 



selves. They 're saying ' quit, quit' to the mortgage now. I 'in going to keep 
my covenant. It makes me happy to think of it. But, as I said, we will not 
let them know that we are coming. And, Susan, Susan, you maybe will hear 
that last song of the robin." 

The old man paced the piazza, and hummed, in a broken voice, — 

•' How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view , 
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, 
And every loved spot which my infancy knew ! 

" I used to know the man that made that song," he said. " He was a son of 
a Revolutionary soldier who lived at Scituate. He went to live in New York. 
Strange that people will go to live so far away ! I used to hear the boys sing it 
during the war," he added, absently, "when they would get Thanksgiving boxes 
from home. Seems as though I could hear it now in the air: there are some 
songs that haunt one's heart, Susan : it seems as though I could hear it far 
away. Listen ! " 

He listened. The prairie air was still. He heard the song, but Susan — she 
did not hear. The wind rippled through the dry leaves of the cottonwoods 
over the three graves. 

There are probably no roads in our country that are so legend-haunted as 
those between Boston and Plymouth. The making of those roads by the 
Massachusetts and Plymouth Bay colonies was the first map of the nation. The 
men who built them, and guarded them by heavy stone walls, were the descend- 
ants of some of the best families of England, whose soul-training had led them 
to place principle above wealth, pleasure, or fame. On their simple rural farms 
they lived, attended the church and the folkmote, as the town meeting may be 
called, and they made the latter the pattern of all future republics. 

Their farms, with the gray stone walls, cool wells, and great elms, retaining 
their names, still remain. The purple swallows come to them as of old in the 
spring-time, and the ospreys, or fishing-hawks, drift over at noon, wheeling in 
the sun. The partridge and quail may still be found in the woodlands and 
woodland pastures, and a few woodpeckers may still be heard tapping the trees. 

The byways in their seclusion are even more poetic than the main highways. 
The wild grape and clematis there cover the sinking walls. The ancient 
graveyards are there, and their slate stones, with their curious death's-heads and 
virtuous poetry, still may be seen zigzagging as it were among the bright 
sumachs. The slanting roofs are covered with moss, and the great barn doors 
open to the sea. 



30 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

It was down this way that the old man Martin Marlowe and his grand- 
daughter rode in one of the last stage-coaches that ever passed down the 
winding roads by the sea, — past the homes of the two Presidents Adams, past 
the church of the eloquent Henry Ware, past the old Scituate farm, where 
Woodworth lived, who wrote " The Old Oaken Bucket," to a once famous but 
now forgotten neighborhood on the North River, where a thousand ships had 
been built, and among them the one which first entered the Columbia River of 
Oregon, and that gave the river its name. The old Winslow place was near, as 
were the green farms on the Marshfield meadows, where Daniel Webster came 
to live, and the Winslow reservation, where live the last of the Wampanoags. 

The old man seemed dwelling in the past as the stage rattled along. 

" There are not many of them left now," he said to Susan. " How I shall 
miss seeing my old friends ! All that a "man can have in this world is his friends, 
and when they go his world is gone." 

He looked out on the great elms, which were flaming with color, and drop- 
ping their leaves in golden showers. The weather was warm, and the air had a 
swampy smell. 

The old man began to tell the legends of the old houses and places as they 
passed along. 

" Susan, there 's where old Parson White used to live in the Indian days. 
His house stood in the meadow ; there 's the chimney there yet — see? — down 
by the alder-bushes. He preached nigh on to seventy year, and he lived to be 
ninety. He preached to the Indians in Eliot's time, when old Waban was 
living. One day a good Indian came to him, asl.'ve hearn the old folks tell, and 
said to him, ' Matthew — Mark— Luke — John — Jonah.' And the tall parson 
talked to him about his soul and redemption and heaven, and then gave him a 
mug of cider to encourage him in his inquiries. It did. He came again, and 
the minister was busy writing one of his long sermons that turned the hour- 
glass twice. ' Matthew — Mark — Luke — John —Jonah,' said the Indian. But 
the parson's mind was in the skies now. So the poor Indian repeated over the 
Scripture names again; but the parson's mind was absent, thinking, — Parson 
White was great on thinking. Then the Indian pounded with his walking-stick, 
making a great noise after each name, and especially after ' Jonah.' That 
brought the old parson down from his Jacob's ladder. 'What do you mean?' 
he shouted, rising up like a steeple. 'Cider!' said the Indian, and the poor 
parson dropped his face. He was discouraged, Susan." 

The stage stopped here and there at the country stores, about whose doors 
hung woollens for winter wear, and on the wooden steps of which were barrels 
of apples, onions, and potatoes. 



THE LAST SO AG OF THE ROBIN. 3 I 

One of the saddest sights on a New England byway is a dead church, with 
its broken tower and silent bell, in some neighborhood where the " boys " have 
nearly all gone to the cities and the West. The coach rolled by such a one, 
with its briery graveyard and broken wall. The old man saw it, and his mem- 
ory of boyhood legends revived again. 

" Susan — Susan — Parson White preached his last sermon there. It is 
boarded up now. See the old bell that used to make the hills echo ! Parson 
White had gone eighty then ; almost ninety he must have been. 

" It was a Sunday morning in balm-breathing June, with the wild roses 
blooming, and the orioles singing, and the bobolinks toppling in the clover. The 
windows were open, and the shadows of the elms fell across them. The com- 
munion-table was spread in front of the tall pulpit, which was hung with silk 
curtains under the sounding-board. Parson White, he went up the pulpit stairs 
and began to pray. The old folks used to say that they never heard such a 
prayer as that. He seemed to be looking into heaven. Suddenly he stopped. 
There was a long silence. The church was so still you might have heard the 
chippering of the wrens in the old trees. He said then : ' The horsemen of 
Israel, and the chariots thereof.' Then he was silent again, and then he seemed 
talking to himself, and said, in a low voice : — 

" ' My willing soul would stay 
In such a frame as this, 
And sit and sing herself away 
To everlasting bliss.' 

He did not move again. Never. He lay there on the pulpit, his face encircled 
in the arms of his long black robe, and resting on the Bible. The deacons went 
up to him softly. He was dead." 

The old man dropped his head in silence for a time. The coach rolled on 
its dusty way over the red and russet leaves that were falling in the sun. 

Little Susan was dreaming too, — of old Susan and haunted rooms and 
the fairy-like day of Thanksgiving. 

"Susan — -Susan — we are near the old farm," said the old man, starting. 
"There 's the gable just over the savin-trees, — there, with the woodbine on it, 
where the martin-boxes used to be. Many 's the time I 've looked out of that 
window. I was young then, Susan ; we do not live twice in this world." 

A strange sound fell on the Western girl's ears. 

" Going! going! How much am I offered for the old family cradle? Fifty 
cents? Fifty cents am I offered for the old family cradle? Fifty cents for this 
old oak cradle? One generation has slept in it, and it is good for another. 
Fifty cents am I offered? " 



32 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

The old man listened a moment, then thrust his head out of the coach-door, 
and said to the driver: " Hurry up ! I want to bid on that cradle.''' 

The driver cracked his whip. The coach rolled by a thin grove of trees that 
partly hid the yard from the way, and a strange scene was brought to view. 
A crowd of people, young and old, were gathered around an old gray farm- 
house with an open door. There were vehicles of almost all kinds about the 
place, with the horses hitched to the trees. In the yard in front of the door 
was the furniture of the house, and on a high chair stood the tall form of 
a country auctioneer, crying the articles for sale in the singsong tone of the 
old travelling preachers, — a tone that must be first heard to be imitated. 

In the doorway, close by a great stone step, sat an old woman in a white 
cap and calico dress, and a handkerchief crossed over her breast. She was 
watching the sale. Her face was beautiful in its serenity, hope, and trust. 
Faith was written in it. She seemed to have a soul that had a life above all 
changes. 

" Is that aunt? " said Susan. 

" My girl, I do not know. It looks like her. Does she look like me? " 

The stage stopped. The driver called to the auctioneer: "Hold on! 
Here 's a man that wants to bid on that cradle." 

The auctioneer ceased his singsong, and all eyes were turned on the old 
man and the girl alighting from the stage. No one knew them. 

" Now we are all ready," began the auctioneer again. " The old oak 
cradle. How much am I offered for the old oak cradle? Fifty cents am 
I offered for the oak cradle? Some good people have been rocked in this old 
cradle, and it is good enough yet. Fifty cents. Seventy-five? Yes, the old 
gentleman who has just arrived bids seventy-five. Eighty- — ■ do I hear it? Eighty 
now for the old oak cradle? There were many prayers made over that old 
oak cradle. S-e-v-e-n-t-ee-five ! Eighty — do I hear it? Are you all done? 
S-e-v-e-n-t-ee-five ! Going, going, going! Once, do I hear the eighty? Twice, 
do I hear the eighty? Three times — third and last call — do I hear the eighty? 
Gone — to — ■ What is your name, stranger?" 

" Cash," said the old man, with a quivering lip, as he passed through the 
crowd, followed by the wondering girl. 

" Sold to Cash," said the auctioneer. "What have we here? The little oak 
chair for the child at the table. Are you all ready to bid for the little oak chair 
for the child at the table? It is as old as the family, and as good as new. Look 
at it, — the little oak chair for the child at the table, — how much am I offered? 
Here is another — two of them. How much am I offered for them both?" 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 35 

The old man Marlowe and Susan take a seat on the great stone step, close 
to the feet of the serene old woman. Marlowe looks into her face. 

Her lip quivered. 

" You bought that cradle," said she. " Were you ever here before? " 

" Yes, many years ago. I used to know your father." 

" You did ! — and my mother, too? " 

" Yes; they were good people." 

" They are buried over there, under the savin-bushes," said the old woman. 
" I was rocked in that there cradle, and my twin brother, who went out West. 
I wish that he could have had that cradle. 1 think of him all the time of late. 
He and a little granddaughter are all that 's left. The auctioneer spoke true 
— he did; there's been many a prayer made over that cradle, and now it is 
gone out of the family. I 've prayed that it might not be so. It will all be 
right by-and-by. The Lord is tedious, but He 's sure. I almost lose my faith 
sometimes, and I can hardly keep back my tears now. Why did you come here, 
stranger? " 

"To spend Thanksgiving. I used to live in this town." 

" Have you any relations here? " 

" Yes, a sister. I came to visit her, and I want to buy some of the old furni- 
ture ; it looks so natural." 

" There 's to be no more Thanksgivings for me in this world. Stranger, it 
does seem rather hard. I 've always been industrious, and have done my best. 
Stranger, it is hard when a poor lone woman like me, that never did any one 
harm, can neither die nor live. Did you ever have any trouble, stranger? You 
have? Then you do feel for me, don't you ? The Lord forgive me ! " 

The voice of the auctioneer rang out, " How much am I offered? " 

" Fifty cents," says old Marlowe, looking at the two chairs as the auctioneer 
held one up in either hand. 

"Fifty cents for two family chairs for children at the table. Oak — good as 
ever — fifty cents! Going, going, going, at fifty cents. Is that all? Fifty 
cents? Do I hear sixty? Sixty — do I hear it? Going, going; once — do I 
hear it? Twice — do I hear it? Three times — do I hear it? Are you all 
done? Fifty cents. Sold to — What shall I call you, stranger? " 

" Cash," said the old man. 

" Cash again," said the auctioneer. 

The old woman touches Marlowe on the shoulder: "Have you any 
children? " 

" No, my good woman. Only my grandchild here." 

" What is her name? " 



36 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Susan." 

" That is my name, stranger. My twin brother and I used to sit in those 
chairs. I wish I were able to save some of these things for him. It is hard, 
isn't it, stranger? But you and I will never be young again. The withered 
stalk never blooms any more. I 've 'most got through." 

She looked out over the sunny fields in the last glow of the Indian-summer 
days. 

" Stranger, you came home to spend Thanksgiving. I '11 have my next 
Thanksgiving in a better world than this. I did hope to see my twin brother 
once more, but that can never be. The sun that goes down will find me a bur- 
den to the world. There 's the old clock ; they 're going to sell that, too. It 
struck on the day that I was born, and at all the weddings and funerals and 
Thanksgiving days. Are you going to buy that, too? I wish you would. I 
have a good feeling for you, — somehow I 'm drawn towards you. I feel as 
though you felt for me. I 've wound that clock myself nigh on to sixty years." 

" The old eight-day clock comes next. Many a day that clock has seen, 
and it is good yet. How much am I offered for the old family clock? Start 
it, some one. I '11 give five dollars for it myself." 

" Six," said the old man on the door-step. 

"Are you going to buy that, too?" said old Susan. " I 'm proper glad to 
hear ye bid on that. How many times I 've heard it strike one. at the family 
funerals, and then seen the minister rise beside the coffin and say, ' Man that 
is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.' I used to hear it strike 
one at night, when I watched with my twin brother Martin, who went West, in 
the weeks and weeks when he laid between life and death with the typhus fever. 
I wish that he could be here to-day. 

" Stranger, do you know of what I've been thinkin'? Of course you don't. 
I 've just been wishing like, dreaming like, that brother Martin would come here, 
as you have come, and would bid off the old farm, and that I might die here at 
last in peace — where they all died. I've been dreamin' just that dream. It 
comes to me. Oh, what a Thanksgiving this old heart would have, could such 
a dream as that come true ! " 

" Six dollars I am offered. Six, six, six. Going, going, going. Do I hear 
seven? " 

" Seven," bid a neighbor. 

"Seven — do I hear ten? Seven dollars am I offered. Yes, once eight, 
and nine. Do I hear ten? Ten, ten, ten — do I hear it?" 

" Ten," said the old man on the step. 

"Ten I am offered. Do I hear the twelve ? Ten, ten, ten. Going, going. 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 7,7 

going, at ten dollars. Once — do I hear it? Twice — do I hear it ? Third 
and last call. Going at ten dollars, to — " 
. " Cash," said the old man. 

" Stranger," said the auctioneer, " what shall we do with these things that 
you have bought ? " 

The crowd gathered densely about the door-step to hear the reply. 

" You may leave them right where they are. I have a good use for them." 

The parlor looking-glass was next offered. The old man on the step bought 
that also. Then the old empty parrot-cage, and he bought that. 

" I 'm glad that you have bought the lookin'-glass," said old Susan. " What 
if all the faces that have looked into it could appear again ! What if I could see 
there my father and mother young again — and Martin ! What does make me 
think so much of Martin of late ? Seems as though sometimes he was hoverin' 
around me. There, they are going to sell the Concord musket and the dinner- 
horn ! How many times I Ve blown that old horn just at twelve o'clock, to call 
the folks to dinner ! Martin learned me how to blow it when he was a boy. W r e 
used to blow a sea-shell at first." 

The sale continued without any regard to the order of the value of the 
articles, — the parlor furniture, old school-books and almanacs, china and pewter 
mugs. The old man on the step bought them all. 

Mysterious looks began to pass from one to another of the country folks. 
Why was the quiet old man buying all those things? What was he going to 
do with them? Would he buy the house and farm? Had he any interest in 
the poor old woman who was watching him now with straining nerves and 
intense interest? 

After the sale of the furniture the auctioneer said: "We will next offer the 
house and farm. The old woman will show you the deeds. There is no 
encumbrance on the property. We will stop the sale for an hour. Then you 
will be ready for the finish. Stranger, where shall we put all these things that 
you have been buying? " 

" I '11 tell you later ; I 'm not ready to answer yet. Never mind me — don't 
crowd around me, friends. I 'm an honest man. Go and take your lunches 
under the trees." 

There was a jingle of bells on the clear bright air. The bread-cart man was 
coming. The people bought gingerbread and bunns, and lounged under the 
cool trees in a spot of ground where stood a large and a small grindstone, and 
overhead hung scythes and corn-knives. There was a buzzing of voices, and 
talking in a suppressed tone, and great inquiry about the stranger who simply 
•called himself " Cash," and who was purchasing everything. 



38 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

The old woman now tried to find out the secret of the stranger's interest in 
these things. 

" You and I must be about the same age," she said. 

" Yes," said the old man ; " the same suns have lighted us both. They 
used to tell a ghost story about the chambers here. My girl has often asked 
me about them. Did you ever see anything strange upstairs? " 

"No; but I found, just before the auction, some papers hidden behind a 
board. They read mighty curious, and were signed with what the writing said 
was blood." 

" You don't say? " said the old man, starting, " What were they? " 

" It was a covenant that some one had made with the Lord. I think that it 
was Martin's. Seemed as though his father asked him to make it. It promised 
many things. There was one thing in it that made me write to him. Whoever 
made it promised to be faithful to me. The signature was faded. It was made 
on the day that the writer was propounded for church." 

Martin Marlowe's face fell. Had he been true to that covenant that he 
remembered so vividly? 

"Say, stranger," said old Susan, "I hope you will excuse me; but what 
may your name be? " 

" Never mind my family history now. I will tell you later more about 
myself. What was the story about the haunted chamber? Tell it to my girl 
here." 

" About Rachel, who raised red peppers, and used to appear with a calash 
over her head? " 

" Yes. That ghost was the terror of all the children and hired people. 
Rachel was an old maiden lady. She used to have charge of the balm bed, the 
sage bed, and the pepper bed, and the dried apples and red peppers, and sold 
them to get money for the church and her clothes. She ground the red pep- 
pers in the garret, and to keep the pepper dust from burning out her eyes, she 
used a calash, which was a great bonnet, with whalebone ribs, that stood up from 
the head all around as though it were hung on the air, and over the calash she 
wore a long green veil. She put over her body a long white night-gown; and 
when we went up to the top of the garret stairs to see her pound, she looked 
kind of awful and scary, like a picture in the old ' Pilgrim's Progress.' When I 
heard that she had come back to haunt the old herb-room in the garret, and I 
pictured in my mind how she used to look, it fairly made my flesh creep. Of 
all ghosts I would n't have liked to see old Rachel with her calash like a 
shay's top and her pound, pound, pound. She used to punish me when 
I was a boy by snapping her thumb and finger on the top of my head. I 







$&. 


J .fy. OJ Qg j 




THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN, 41 

remember it all as though it were yesterday. I once went up to the herb-room 
to get some — " 

" Not herbs, my good friend," said Susan. 

" No; some preserves or cake. They used to keep the goodies there, and 
I had been going there pretty often in a quiet way, when I felt, just as I was 
bending over the marmalade-jar, a snap on the top of my head ; and I looked 
■up suddenly, and there was the most awful sight that I ever saw, — old Rachael 
herself, in her white nightgown, calash, and all. I scooted after the first glance, 
and rolled over and over down the first flight of stairs, and leaped down the 
■second. No barn or chimney swift could have gone quicker. I didn't sleep 
much for a long time after that, and I never dared to tell the story, because I 
was at the marmalade-jar when she appeared. I never told it to anybody until 
after I went away. 

" I used to lay awake until morning, and when I heard the wings of the 
swallows in the chimney my heart would beat like a trip-hammer, for I thought 
it was old Rachael and her pepper-mill. When the fowls crowed for day I 
would feel safe again, for no ghost ever could appear after the cock crew in the 
morning, so the old folks said. Susan, what do you think that ghost was? " 

" Oh, my good friend, how can I tell it now? I think — oh, I know it was 
poor old grandmother ! She scared Martin once in that way to keep him — 
oh, how can I say it? — to keep him from getting at her plum-cake." 

" How do you know?" 

" She told me so, and told me never to tell." 

The two looked at each other. 

"That accounts for it. I always thought it was kind o' strange that they 
should have whalebone calashes in another world." 

" Stranger, how familiar you seem to be with this old place, the swallows in 
the chimney and all ! You say you used to know our folks. Any relation?" 

" I used to work for your father." 

" Did ye?" 

The two looked at each other — after fifty years. 

" Somehow I almost feel related," said old Susan. 

The shining hour of noon was now passed. The auctioneer rang his bell. 

"Are you ready for the sale of the farm? Thirty acres and the house and 
buildings. Clear deed. How much am I offered? Some one start the farm. 
Been in the same family one hundred and thirty years. How much am I 
offered? " 



42 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Five hundred dollars," said a well-to-do-looking farmer named Pool. 

" Five hundred dollars. Do I hear the six? Five hundred dollars am I 
offered. Do I hear the six? Five hundred dollars." 

" Six," bid another. 

" Seven," another. 

" Eight." 

" Nine." 

"Nine hundred dollars I am offered. Do I hear the thousand? Nine hun- 
dred dollars. Nine, nine, nine. Going, going, nine hundred dollars. One 
thousand — do I hear it? Nine hundred dollars. Are you all done? Going,, 
going — " 

" One thousand dollars." 

The voice came from the old man on the step. Old Susan rocked violently,, 
and appeared greatly agitated. The people gathered in a close mass around 
the door-step, all eyes fixed upon the venerable stranger. 

" One thousand dollars. Do I hear eleven hundred? One thousand dollars, 
am I offered. Going, going, going. Once, twice, third and last call, going, 
going, going, for one thousand dollars. The hammer is about to fall. One 
th-o-u-s-a-n-d dollars. Sold." 

There was a deep silence that followed the fall of the hammer. 

" Gone," said the old woman, and she threw her apron over her white head 
and bent over, adding: " I am homeless now. I never thought to see a day 
like this." 

"What is to be done with these things?" asked the auctioneer. 

The old man rises. His girl stands up beside him. 

" Susan," said he. 

Old Susan uncovered her pitiful face. 

" Susan, what will you have done with these things? I have bought them 
for you." 

Susan stops her rocking. She looks dazed. Her face is upturned, and her 
blue eye looks piercingly into the eye of the tall old man. 

" I would have you have them. You do pity me, don't you? It will do me 
good to think that you have them. You have spoken to me kindly." 

" The furniture shall all be brought back into the house again," says the 
quiet old man. " The cradle, clock, and looking-glass shall all be placed 
where they were before." 

" To whom are the papers to be made out? " asks the auctioneer. 

" My good friend, we shall need no new deeds. The old ones will do. I 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 43 

used to know the family when I was a boy, and Susan's father and mother did 
much for me. To-morrow is Thanksgiving, and I shall spend it here. I'm 
going to be good to Susan for the old folks' sake." 

He bends over old Susan. She sits like one dead. He takes her withered 
hand, stoops down and kisses her, and says, — 

" I '11 let the place to her." 

There was a silence in the air that Indian-summer afternoon, and for many 
minutes the silence was unbroken. A woodpecker tapped a hollow tree at last,, 
and a sea-bird on wide wings went screaming by. 

"Let the place to me?" says old Susan. "Stranger, you are good, like 
one sent forth out of the doors of heaven, but I have no money. I must be 
plain, stranger. I have no money, and how are these old hands to earn any? 
Look at them. Their work is done." 

She bends her gray head. 

" Stranger, I want to say something to you in private. I have something on 
my soul, and it troubles me. They have kept back a part of the price." 

"What?" 

" The neighbors, some of them, the Brewster boys, they 've driven away my 
Thanksgiving turkeys." 

" Why, my good woman? " 

" So that the auctioneer should not sell them. The neighbors said, that my 
Thanksgiving turkeys should not be sold. Now that was kind in 'em, was n't 
it? But it was n't quite right. I 've always done just the thing that I thought 
to be right. My motto has been, ' I will be what I ought to be.' I 'm poor, 
stranger, but, except the turkeys, my conscience is clear. My folks were all 
good people, as you know, if you used to work here when a boy, notwith- 
standing that grandmother used to keep the children away from the herb-room 
with old Rachel's gown and calash. Now, stranger, what would you do? The 
folks here wouldn't like it if I were to tell the auctioneer; they're too good to 
me. But I must tell now ; I must be honest, stranger. You are so good to me. 
I don't understand it. It is all a wonderment; but the Lord will make it plain. 
Seems as though I was dreaming." 

She looks out over the hills, which are flaming with autumn glows. She 
starts. 

" Stranger, there 's one other thing that I want to tell you. There 's another 
thing that I 've kept back. But that is honest. My twin brother Martin had a 
violin, and he left it here. I 've felt that it isn't theirs; it's his. He used to 
sing in the church over there. You may see the steeple now. And he used to 
play on the violin." 



44 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

There was a new movement among the people in the yard. One of the 
neighbors came up to the steps. 

" It 's too bad, Susan ; they Ve found those turkeys. The dog scented 'em 
out, and he 's driving 'em home. It is too bad ; they might have left ye a 
Thanksgiving dinner." 

There was great gobbling in the hill-side pasture. A flock of turkeys, one 
of which was white, was half running and half flying towards the house, followed 
by the auctioneer's dog. One of the gobblers had lost his tail feathers, and he 
flew up in a zigzag way, and alighted in a maple-tree. Another turkey followed 
him, flying heavily and clumsily, and crying, almost like a human voice, " Quit ! 
quit ! " 

" Stranger," said old Susan, " seems 's though that turkey spoke, as Balaam's 
turkey, if he had one, might have done. Stranger, I raised them turkeys my- 
self, and I hoped that I might have one myself; and that perhaps — I dreamed 
of it, stranger — perhaps my twin brother Martin, who went out West, might be 
here, and that we might have one of them for Thanksgiving." 

" I '11 buy the turkeys for you." 

"You — well, you are proper good. But I don't understand these things. 
I 've never been used to receiving anything from strangers, though the neighbors 
have always been good to me. They tried not to have the farm sold, but it was 
the law. Stranger, it had to be — it was the law." 

The auctioneer mounted the bench again, rang his bell, and swung his 
hammer. 

" There 's one thing we 've overlooked. Hear, all ! Here are the things 
that everybody wants. Turkeys — to-morrow is Thanksgiving. A fine lot of 
fat turkeys, and a white one. Just look at that fat old gobbler up in that tree ! 
One seldom sees a finer bird than that. And look at that hen-turkey — " 

"Quit! quit!" exclaimed the beautiful bird, in great astonishment, on 
seeing all eyes turned towards her. 

" That *s the mother turkey," said old Susan. "She 's lost her family before. 
She is a cosset turkey. I raised her in the chimney-corner. She is used to 
coming into the house to be fed." 

"How much am I offered for this fine lot of turkeys? Just a dozen of 
them. Twelve dollars. I am offered twelve dollars. Do I hear the thirteen? 
Twelve dollars, twelve dollars. Thirteen — thirteen I am offered. Thirteen — 
fourteen. Fifteen — do I hear it? Fourteen dollars. Going, going, going. Once, 
do I hear it? Twice, do I hear it? Third and last call — f-o-u-r-t-e-e-n dollars." 

He lifted his hammer. 



THE LAST SONG OF THE ROBIN. 45 

" Fifteen." 

" Fifteen dollars — fifteen I am offered. Going, going, going, for fifteen 
dollars. Are you all done? Going for fifteen dollars to — " 

" Martin Marlowe," said the old man in a firm voice. 

He stood up and uncovered his white head. Old Susan's form dropped 
together as though she had been smitten. She buried her face in her lap, and 
sobbed as she used to do in childhood. 

The neighbors gather silently around the door-step, among the myrtles and 
bouncing-bet. Some are whispering, some laughing, and a few are crying. 

" Susan," says the old man, " get me my violin." 

The old woman sent for the instrument, and the old man saw that it had 
not been wholly out of use. He tuned it, and lifted it into the air. "Susan, 
we used to sing together in church, over there. What did we use to say on 
Thanksgiving days? 

" I remember, neighbors. I 'm going to play that hymn. My voice is 
almost gone, but I want you to sing it with me." 

He lifts the bow. " Tune — ' Hamburg.' " 

The music floated out on the mellow autumn air, the violin playing as in 
the old church days. Before the people ran the river to the sea. The air was. 
still; nature seemed listening. 

" God is the Refuge of His saints 

When storms of sharp distress invade; 
Ere we can offer our complaints, 
Behold Him present with His aid. 

" Let mountains from their seats he hurled 
Down to the deep and buried there, 
Convulsions shake the solid world, 
Our faith shall never yield to fear. 

" Loud may the troubled ocean roar, 
In sacred peace our souls abide, 
While every nation, every shore, 

Trembles and dreads the swelling: tide. 

" There is a stream whose gentle flow 
Supplies the city of our God, 
Life, love, and joy still gliding through, 
And watering; our divine abode. 



46 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

"That sacred stream, thy Holy Word, 
Our grief allays, our fear controls ; 
Sweet peace thy promises afford, 

And give new strength to fainting souls. 

"Zion enjoys her Monarch's love, 

Secure against a threatening hour ; 
Nor can her firm foundation move, 

Built on His truth, and armed with power." 

" Now sing the Doxology ! " He lifted his bow again. People turn aside 
their faces to hide their tears. Then the strains of thanksgiving rose up under 
the glimmering trees. And old Susan stood up and sung. 

It is near sunset now. The red sky shines through the skeleton limbs of the 
still trees. The crows are cawing afar over a dead corn-field. The jaws are 
calling in the savin-bushes. Old Susan looks into her brother's face. She takes 
little Susan by the hand. 

A bird comes flying through the air out of the woods and alights on the top 
of an elm. It has a red breast, which shines in the sunset. It lifts its brown 
wings joyfully and begins to sing. 
It was the last song of the robin. 1 

1 This story is used by permission of Messrs. Harper and Brothers. I wrote it originally 
for the Thanksgiving number of " Harper's Weekly," 1893. 




ELECTRICITY AND MINES BUILDINGS. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE STORY OF THE OPENING OF THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN 

EXPOSITION. 

SINGLE member of the Folk Lore Society was in 
Chicago at the opening of the Exposition. He re- 
turned a few days after the event. It was one of the 
plans of this Society to have its members give 
accounts of the new places they visited, and a meet- 
ing was called on the return of this fortunate member 
to hear him relate the story of the May Day opening of the Fair. 

The story 1 increased the interest among the members in Mr. Mar- 
lowe's visit. What suggestions might not Mr. Marlowe have to 
make ? 




1 This account was written by Mr. C. A. Stephens for the " Youth's Companion." 



4 8 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



MAY DAY AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. 

It was almost twelve o'clock on the opening day of the World's Fair, 
President Cleveland was on the grand stand in front of the Administration 
Building. The triumphant Columbian March had been rendered by the great 
orchestra; the director-general had given his admirable address; the ode 




ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND COURT OF HONOR. 



and prophecy had been read, and the President was making his brief speech of 
the opening hour. 

"Look sharp! He will touch the button in a moment more! Watch for 
the flags and the fountains ! '■' 

Massed before the platform, and extending away down the grand square 



STORY OF THE OPENING OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 51 

toward the Peristyle, still streaming in through the broad courts, thronging the 
immense facades and capacious balconies of the mighty buildings, and even 
perched by scores and by hundreds on the lofty battlements and amidst the 
huge statuary groups of the roofs, were well-nigh four hundred thousand 
people. 

It was a vast oceanic crowd, gathered from every land and nation of the 
globe to celebrate the inaugural day of the Columbian Exposition. 

Turks, Arabs, Singhalese, and Malays; Algerians, Dahometans, Coreans, 
Samaons, Egyptians, and Eskimos, as well as Japanese, French, Germans, Span- 
iards, and Russians, were represented and mixed throughout that great throng, 
to which also were added a hundred or more painted and feathered Sioux 
Indians. 

These last, in fact, were the only true, original Americans present, for in 
one sense all others are immigrants. 

Although the preparations had been delayed by a long, cold, driving rain- 
storm, word had gone abroad that on Monday, May first, the World's Fair 
would be opened, and foul weather did not keep the people at home. 

When the President arrived, shortly before eleven o'clock, the sun, for the 
first time in several days, broke through the dark, low-lying clouds ; but trail- 
ing fogs still half veiled the domes, towers, and finials of the gigantic buildings. 
Never, as it seemed to those who have marked their progress toward comple- 
tion, had these huge structures looked so enormous, as now that their founda- 
tions were encompassed and blackened by the innumerable multitudes, while 
their domes and roofs were iooming, half concealed, in the mist-clouds. 

The magnitude of the grand square and the vastness of the assemblage 
alike defied the power of the human voice to fill or reach. The prayer and the 
ode were heard by but few. But the voice of the President was stronger, and 
audible farther ; and when, advancing, amidst a tremendous outburst of cheers, 
he began his short address, the opening sentence, admirable in its simple mod- 
esty, " I am here, my fellow-citizens, to join in the congratulations which befit 
this occasion," penetrated to a greater distance, and stimulated remote areas of 
the throng to try to approach nearer and hear more. 

The pressure of these converging masses of humanity soon began to be felt 
alarmingly by the central concourse, directly in front of the platform. The 
lines of stalwart guards, although aided and re-enforced by platoons of United 
States infantry, were powerless to withstand this immense inward movement. 
Guards and soldiers were pushed aside, and borne on by the resistless pressure. 
Their brandished swords and shouts appeared not to be noticed or heeded ; and 
for a time it seemed as if hundreds, perhaps thousands, would be borne down 
and crushed under foot. 



5 2 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



Many women fainted, and were supported bodily by those near them ; nor 
could the Red Cross chairs gain access, for a time, to take them away to the 
emergency hospitals. 




ft" - - 




STREET SCENE, — OPENING DAY. 



The crowd swayed to and fro, oscillating rhythmically, and displaying within 
itself currents and counter-currents of human beings which met and mutually 
checked each other. At last, as if from restored equilibrium, the tumult 
ceased. 



STORY OF THE OPENING OF THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 55 

By good fortune no one had been seriously injured; but the spectacle of 
resistless might, presented by this movement of three hundred thousands of 
people, will not soon be forgotten by those who witnessed it from the platform. 

From here and there in the great tract of human heads and faces, bursts of 
cheering rose at intervals, and were responded to from opposite quarters; and 
it was amidst such scenes as these that the President finished his speech and 
advanced to the little triple dais of oak and velvet, draped with the national 
colors, and pressed the electric key, or " button," by means of which the great 
Allis engine in Machinery Hall was set in motion. 

The same key also gave the signal to all the flagmen, fountain-men, can- 
noneers, and boatmen on the lagoons, to enact their parts in the great pro- 
gramme of display. 

But louder even than the artillery salutes and the shrieking of steam whistles 
was the mighty roar of applause from the multitude. It was, in truth, vox 
popitli : the voice of the people in their united might. Then for a few moments 
a kind of silence fell, and the great sea of faces was seen to be rapt and intent 
on the brilliant spectacle of the unfurling flags, and leaping white jets and 
spray-bursts from the fountains. 

On the instant, at the touch of the button, the great buildings turned suddenly 
resplendent with gay colors : the flags, ensigns, streamers, gonfalons, and 
emblems of all nations. In a moment the stately " white city of palaces " had 
grown deliriously gay with bright bunting; and on the lagoons swiftly propelled 
gondolas, in Venetian red and blue, mingled with the even brighter-hued 
electric launches. 

And over all — a curious, pleasing feature of the hour — wheeled hundreds 
of white gulls, visitors from the great lake just outside, whose peculiar wild cries 
blended with the human acclamations. 

The President had spoken, and had opened the Exposition. The brief cere- 
monies were over, and the mighty concourse in Administration Square melted 
away, in streamlets and groups, for a day of sight-seeing in the grounds. 

Many made their way to the Manufactures Building, to behold the largest 
edifice in the world, and also in the hope of gaining another glimpse of the 
President and Cabinet, who were soon to proceed thither in company with the 
Duke of Veragua, a direct descendant, in the eleventh generation, of Christopher 
Columbus. 

Almost as many more turned toward Machinery Hall, to see the huge engines 
and dynamos which had been so recently set in motion. The rest distributed 
themselves in many directions through the grounds. 

Then indeed it was apparent that half a million of people may be present at 



5 6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

the Exposition without crowding or mutual inconvenience. From many points 
of view, in fact, no one would now have suspected that an unusual number of 
visitors were on the grounds. The great squares, plazas, avenues, courts, and 
interspaces swallowed them up, and if one may use the expression, gaped for 
more. 

Eighty thousand may visit the Manufactures Building at one time. Agri- 
cultural Building has room for thirty thousand, Machinery Hall for as many 
more, and so on of all the other great structures. A million of people may be 
present at the Fair on a single day without serious obstruction to sight-seeing. 

The four hundred thousand or more who attended the May-day opening 
were a remarkably quiet and orderly assemblage. Very few dissensions or 
disturbances of any kind occurred. Few rogues were present, so far as known ; 
if present, they contented themselves with sight-seeing. But one pickpocket 
attempted to ply his vocation, and he was detected in the act. 

After the opening exercises, the great assemblage gave an observer the im- 
pression of being unusually silent, as if awed by the grandeur and magnitude of 
the buildings. On every hand people were seen to be gazing in absorbed 
contemplation. Foreigners present remarked this silence of the people with 
surprise, it was so unlike the vivacious chatter of a European crowd. Americans 
are unemotional, irresponsive, stupid, they exclaimed. 

They failed to understand the American type of mind. Our people were 
beholding, intelligently comparing, estimating, thinking; and one who really 
thinks is not apt to chatter. These silent gazers were taking in the height, 
breadth, beauty, and magnificent variety of the great Exposition, — taking it in 
and storing it away for future use. 




PORT OF CHICAGO. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 




HE Folk-Lore Society which became a part of the 
Village Improvement Society in West Roxbury, 
used to have Story-Telling Nights, and on these 
occasions elderly people were invited to attend and 
relate old village stories. The Folk-Lore story is 
a very interesting department of Folk-Lore ; and of 
all places in America, the towns that follow the windings of the 
Charles River, are rich in quaint old tales. The Brook Fann-House, 
now the German Orphan Asylum, sent into the world a coterie of 
magic story-tellers. The old houses around the Dedham Woods all 
have their legends. West Roxbury and the Newtons are haunted 
places. 

Among the popular subjects of this antique story-telling, are " The 



6o 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



Old New England Ghost Story," and " Funny Tales of Old Inde- 
pendence Days." 

There were several of these stories that were particularly popular. 
One of them was the reading of that masterpiece of old wonder- 




GOVERNMENT BUILDING. 

books, known as " The Devil and Tom Walker," a warning to usurers, 
speculators, and all over-reaching people. 

Stories of " Lord Timothy Dexter " and old New England Ghost 
Stories were among the interesting narratives that had entertained 
the society. We give two of these, — Blingo the Blacksmith, or 
Lord Timothy Dexter's Poet and The Darby Ring. 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 



63 



BLINGO, THE BLACKSMITH. 

Tommy Topp sat sunning" himself in the wide open door of Blingo's black- 
smith shop, when a cloud of oust appeared in the highway ; a chariot presently 
broke into view from the dusty cloud, and four black horses stopped under 
the golden elms that shaded a rustic watering-trough near the rural smithy. 

This was a strange event. People did not ride in " chariots " in Massachu- 
setts during the last century, as a rule, and never in a chariot like this. 




MACMONNIES (COLUMBIAN) FOUNTAIN. 



The vehicle was not of the classic Roman pattern, such as swept under 
the triumphal arches in the purple days of the emperors; nor, indeed, a state 
coach like the disjointed affairs of the days of good Queen Anne. But it was 
as lively and picturesque in color as a band carriage of to-day, and it was 



6 4 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



ornamented with a very curious coat-of-arms, the design of which was myste- 
rious, and probably was intended to be so. 

Tommy Topp started up with eyes wide with wonder. Blingo dropped an 
iron whiffle-tree that he was making, and ran to the door, shading his eyes with 
his sooty hand. 




THE PERISTYLE. 



The horses having drank at the watering-trough, the liveried coachman, or 
charioteer, drove them toward the door, exclaiming, " Whoa ! " in an imperial 
tone, as a footman alighted, in a glory of shining buttons. 

The door of the chariot was opened, and another wonder appeared in the 
shape of an old man in a cocked hat, cape-cloak, and knee-buckles, carrying a 
gold-headed cane. He rose up from under a kind of canopy, and said in a 
terrific tone : — 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 6j 

" Where 's the blacksmith ? " 

The word " where " rasped the very air. 

" Ah, ah — I see, — Lord Dexter," stammered Blingo. " You do me great 
honor. How can I serve you? What can I do for you?" 

The old man turned to his coachman, and said, laconically, — 

" You talk with him." 

" One of the horses has cast a shoe," said the coachman. 

The blacksmith at once examined the foot of the horse, — a matter in which 
Tommy Topp took little interest, as that was a common affair. The boy's eyes 
were riveted on the infirm but pompous old man, as he hobbled about with the 
aid of his gold-headed cane. 

The strange restlessness of his eyes would have excited the curiosity of any 
one, and seemed to fascinate Tommy, whose life had been uneventful, but who 
had a very lively imagination. 

The old man took a few turns under the trees, through which the sunlight 
was sifting that bright, mellow afternoon. Then he turned suddenly and 
exclaimed in a tone of command, — 

" Plummer, get out." 

Another marvel appeared, a marvel to Tommy, and a spectacle that would 
have been equally exciting to almost any one outside of the sea-town of New- 
buryport and its neighborhoods. 

Out of a richly embroidered or figured robe rose a figure covered by a 
cloak that was decorated with stars and fringes. It was a poet, — an unusual 
curiosity, for poets were not common in those days. He, too, had a cocked 
hat, large silver knee-buckles, and a gold-headed cane. 

Tommy had heard of Jonathan Plummer, the former fish-peddler, who had 
discovered that he could make rhymes, and had been appointed laureate by 
" Lord " Timothy Dexter, whose chateau, with its remarkable statues and 
gilded eagle, looked down from a high street on the blue harbor of Newbury- 
port. To Tommy, this transformation of a poor fish-peddler into the poet of 
the self-created " lord " was one of the most marvellous events since the days of 
which he had read in the " Thousand and One Nights." 

The poems of Jonathan Plummer are still to be found in the quaint lore of 
antiquarian societies, in whose safe deposits so much of the world's genius has 
to wait appreciation 

Who was this strange man, thus impatiently waiting for the shoeing of his 
horse, who so greatly excited the curiosity of the Yankee boy? 

A more picturesque answer cannot be given than that presented in the 



68 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



words of Jonathan Plummer, the poet, quoted from a long poem which relates 
his master's history: — 

" Lord Dexter is a man of fame ; 
Most celebrated is his name, 
More precious far than gold that 's pure 
Lord Dexter shines forevermore." 




GOVERNMENT BUILDING. 



It will be seen that the poet sometimes used imperfect rhymes. 

" His house is white, and trimmed with green ; 
For many miles it may be seen. 
It shines as bright as any star ; 
The fame of it has spread afar. 

" Lord Dexter, like King Solomon, 
Had gold and silver by the ton, 
And bells to churches he hath given, 
To worship the Great King of Heaven." 

The Arabian kings had their astrologers, and so had other kings in the 
Middle Ages. " Lord " Dexter was as famous for his intimacy with fortune- 
tellers as for his garden of statues of heroes, among which his own effigy occu- 
pied two pedestals at Newburyport. 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. ji 

He was on the way to Lynn, when he drove up before Blingo's door, to 
visit " Moll " Pitcher, a woman who was reputed to have the gift of second 
sight, and who " told fortunes by tea-cups." 

" Lord " Dexter, as he was called, but really Timothy Dexter, of Newbury- 
port, was a real and very famous character of the last century. He was a 
mildly insane man, who had acquired a large fortune by trading adventurously 
at sea. The grotesque fact of his sending warming-pans to hot climates, and 
of the ship's captain selling them for ladles for molasses and returning with a 
fortune, was an old-time wonder-tale, as well as the joke of his writing a book 
called " A Pickle for the Knowing Ones," and putting all the punctuation marks 
on the last page, with the direction to the readers to " Pepper the dish to suit 
themselves." 

His strange mansion and gardens and statues are still to be seen pictured in 
old books, as is his own portrait in costume, with embroidered vest, cocked 
hat, and laced trousers. There were many stories of this eccentric man who 
so greatly enjoyed the fancy that he was a lord. 

Curious as is this history, well-known to the old New England families, it is 
hardly more so than that of " Moll " Pitcher, who figures in one of VVhittier's 
poems, and who was equally celebrated as an odd character in New England 
a century ago, when trading by sea was the principal business along the coast. 

This strange woman seems to have been sincere in her belief that she pos- 
sessed the gift of " second sight," — an hallucination that she probably inherited 
from her grandfather, who thought that he was a " wizard," whatever that 
may have been. 

The sailors went to consult her in regard to their voyages, and crews some- 
times refused to depart from port if her predictions were unfavorable. She 
had a strong, masculine face, with something hidden behind it; a rather kindly 
face withal, but self-conscious and keen. 

Apart from her hallucination and its evil influences, she was a good and self- 
respecting woman. The simple cottage where she lived was visited for many 
years after her death, which occurred in 1813, by collectors of traditions and 
folk-lore, and by nearly all strangers who made a pilgrimage to Lynn. 

Like Lord Dexter, this woman seems to have been mildly insane. The two 
seemed to be confidential friends, and Dexter used to ride over to Lynn to 
consult with her. He was reputed to have gained a part of his wealth by the 
aid of her divining tea-cups. 

Blingo soon shod the horse. The imaginary " lord " and his plebeian poet 
entered the coach. The driver mounted his box, and the footman his post. 
There was a crack of the whip, a rush of the startled black horses, and a great 



72 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

cloud of dust rose again, as the grotesque vehicle wheeled away under the 
glimmering autumn leaves, in the direction of the blue capes of Lynn. 

As it passed from the view of the humble smithy, Blingo the blacksmith and 
Tommy Topp sat down beside each other in the open door, and discussed the 
import of this curious event. The effect of this harlequinade on the mind of 
the old blacksmith and the boy was to make them ill at ease in their simple 
stations of life. 

" This is a strange world," said Blingo, — "a very strange, strange world. 
Look at Timothy Dexter. He got rich by accident, and thinks he 's a lord. 
Here I have to work hard all day in order to live, and pay my honest debts, and 
then have nothing left for old age. That man never worked as I work a day 
in his life. Now he 's going to see that lying old fortune-teller. It 's all wrong, 
yet see how he prospers ! I declare I lose faith in everything." 

The sun was sinking over the autumn hills in mingled lustres of vermilion 
and gold. The shadows were darkening in the woods and orchards. Every- 
where the crickets were chirping in the fading grasses, and their lonesome 
notes only added to the honest blacksmith's dissatisfaction. There are times 
when even a true heart becomes discouraged. 

" Blingo ! " said Tommy, " I 'm thinkin ' that we might be rich." 

"Are you? I should like to know how ? " 

" We might get Moll Pitcher to tell our fortunes, as well as Lord Dexter, 
have been told something that I believe is true." 

"What's that?" 

" I Ve been told that there is a pot of gold hidden in the High Rock of 
Lynn." 

" Who told you that?" 

" Grandma Pennypacker." 

There was a thoughtful silence. 

" Well, what if there is? " continued Blingo. 

" I've a plan," said Tommy, hesitatingly. " I'd like to go and ask Moll 
Pitcher if she '11 tell, me where the money-pot is hidden. And then if she tells 
me we can go and dig it up, and you can have half of the gold and I will have 
half. That will be fair. Everybody knows it 's up there somewheres, but no 
one knows where. She only asks three shillings to look into her tea-cup. And 
then — and then — perhaps we might ride in a chariot and have a big house." 

There had been a legend for nearly a hundred years in Lynn that certain 
pirates landed on the coast, and buried treasures at High Rock or Dungeon 
Rock, two well-known places near the village. Three of these men were cap- 
tured and taken to England, but a third one, Thomas Veale, continued to live 



WM, 














if ■; 
7ll ^ A 



c 







C 



o 

X 

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AC" 



«#P*' 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 75 

there for many years, but, it is supposed, was buried in the rocks by the earth- 
quake of 1658. 

This legend, as is usual with legends, grew with years, and it is still repeated 
in Lynn. It filled the popular fancy more than one hundred years ago, and 
was especially vivid in Lord Timothy Dexter's day. 

Visions of riches began to expand in the boy's mind, and his mental mood 
perceptibly affected the honest soul of Blingo. 

" Think what we might do if we were only rich ! " said the boy, with eager 
eyes. 

" I don't know. I'm afraid we should n't feel just honest as we do now, if 
we had money that we had not earned ourselves, and that didn't belong to us," 
said Blingo. " It 's a great thing to feel that one's honest." 

" But the money-pot don't belong to anybody. It 's as much yours and 
mine as any one's. It belongs to the man that finds it" 

" Yes, yes ; p'r'apsso; p'r'aps not; and p'r'aps I'd lose my own respect 
if I was to let you go to a fortune-teller to find it. Stands to reason that the 
Lord don't reveal His secrets through Moll Pitcher's tea-cups; and if He don't 
who does? That's what I'd like to know — who does? It's the Evil One 
himself." 

The boy sat silent. The sounds around the farm-houses were echoed here 
and there, — the dog's bark and the chore-boy's whistle. Now and then a light 
gust of wind, like the passing of a messenger unseen, shook down the yellow 
leaves, and left a rustling in the withered trees. 

Afar, a bell was ringing in a steeple of Lynn, and nearer there was a 
rumble of cart-wheels laboring under a weight of corn. 

" There is a great deal of comfort," said Blingo, after this pause, as if talk- 
ing to himself, " there is a great deal of comfort to be taken with money if it 
can be got honestly." 

" But /'// go to the fortune-teller." 

" That would n't help me inwardly. I 'm afeard it would n't be right for me 
to allow you to do what I would n't like to do myself, and I never heard of any 
good that ever come from consulting tea-grounds. Still- " and there was 
another pause — " Still, money would be handy with a wife and seven children, 
and gray hairs comin'. Yes, it would." 

The word " still" settled the question with Tommy, and he started up and 
walked away without another word. He had almost reached the decision to 
pay a visit to the Lynn fortune-teller, after the example of Lord Dexter. As 
he hurried home that wish was confirmed, and he fell asleep in the attic to 



7 6 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




MACHINERY HALL. 



dream of fortune and fame, chariots and poets, and a chateau overlooking the 
blue capes of the sea. 

The next morning Tommy arose, and after breakfast started in the direc- 
tion of Lynn. The first pause in his rapid journey he made at Blingo's smithy. 

" Blingo, I 'm goin'." 

"Do tell!" said Blingo, dropping his hammer. "Well, it may be right, 
but I don't feel quite right about it. Still, I would not fly into the face of good 
fortune. Here, she'll charge you three shillings for lookin' into the tea-cup, 
and I '11 pay my part. Here it is." 

Tommy took the money. Then his feet flew along the path by the side of 
the turnpike. He did not stop again until he reached the fortune-teller's door. 

The simple cottage of Moll Pitcher was gay with the last blossoms of a 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 77 

morning-glory vine. Tommy paused to wonder a moment at the pile of varie- 
gated bloom, when the small front door opened, and the fortune-teller herself 
appeared, with an inquiring face. 

"The frost has spoiled them," said she, seeing Tommy looking at the 
morning-glories. " They will all die in a few days ; it is a pity. Won't you 
come in ? " 

Tommy entered the solitary cottage, and was shown a chair in a simple, 
plain room. 

" I 've come to ask you about something," he said. " I 'm poor. We 're all 
poor at home, and — and — I — I wish I had money. I 've come to see if you '11 
help me to find some." 

"To find some? Mercy, child, — 

" If I only knew, if I only knew, 
What do you think that I would do?" 

She sat down in a patched chair, and rocked to and fro. 

" They say that you know everything, — all the secrets of the hidden treas- 
ures, where the money-pots are, and all," ventured Tommy. 

She looked the lad sharply in the face with her keen eyes, then smiled and 

said: — 

'-If I only knew, if I only knew, 

What do you think that I would do ? " 

There was another silence, which Tommy ventured to break. 

" Would you be willing to look into the tea-cup for me? I 've brought the 
pay with me." 

" What for? " asked the old woman. 

" To tell me where the pirates hid the money-pot," said Tommy, his voice 
trembling. 

" Mercy on ye, boy, — 

" If I only knew, if I only knew, 
What do you think that I would do ?" 

There was another long silence. Tommy was very nervous; he waited 
until it seemed to him he could wait no longer, and then he asked, faintly, 
" What would you do, if you only knew ? " 

She drew her chair near to him. "Listen. What would I do? I'd go 
and get it for myself. Now you 'd better go home, my lad. This is all I can 
do for you this morning. Go to work and honestly earn your money. There, 
don't say that Moll Pitcher has not given you good advice, and I won't charge 
you anything for it." 



j 3 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

The disappointed boy dragged his feet back to the smithy over the high- 
ways and byways during the long autumn afternoon, and sank down at last on 
the doorsill of the shop, where the vision of Lord Dexter's magnificence had 
appeared to him. 

Blingo came and leaned over him. 

" Well, what did she tell you ? " 

" She could n't find it," said Tommy. 

" What did she say ? " 

" She only said if she knew where the money was, she'd get it herself." 

THE "DARBY RING." 1 

WHEN I was young, it was common to hear boys upon the skating ponds 
speak of " cutting the Darby," by which expression they were supposed to 
indicate a swift ring movement upon the ice. The term, I believe, is still used, 
although comparatively few people may be acquainted with its origin. It came 
into use through a very singular occurrence, which for a time was the one great 
local event of a considerable farming and maritime region stretching along the 
northeastern shore of Narragansett Bay. 

In the summer of 1798, many respectable persons, whose homes were in the 
pleasant towns of Bristol, Warren, and Barrington, R. I., together with some few 
in the neighboring communities of Swansea and Rehoboth, Mass., were made 
the victims of a queer delusion. 

A short time previous, a man named Darby, or Derby, — the first being the 
form generally accepted by tradition, — had come to Warren from some part of 
Connecticut, taken up his abode in the town, and opened a school. As he was 
a person of pleasing address, he soon became a decided favorite with the honest 
sea-captains and farmers, who constituted the " solid men " of a population at 
once rural and commercial. 

A keen judge of human nature, he knew how to adapt his speech to suit the 
character of the person whose sympathies he wished to engage ; while the fact 
that he was a schoolmaster made his utterances oracular to a degree with a 
people to whom the " Columbiad " of good Joel Barlow was the only known 
classic. 

He was fond of conversing upon mineralogy; and thence gliding easily into 
necromancy and kindred subjects, he would dwell upon the possibility of 
unearthing buried treasure through the exercise of some mysterious art akin to 
the supernatural. 

1 Adapted from a story by Mr. George Coomer in "Youth's Companion." 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY'S QUEER STORIES. 79 

With abundant citations and authorities at his tongue's end, he would call 
up the traditions of Kidd, Bellamy and other freebooters, and show how probable 
it was that much of their ill-gotten gain remained somewhere hidden about the 
New England shores. 

In the course of a few months he had wormed himself into the confidence of 
a number of sober and substantial people, — but he always chose for his intimate 
friends those who had property. 

The generation of our great-grandfathers must have been much more credu- 
lous than our own, for it is agreed upon all sides that the crafty adventurer met 
with no difficulty in obtaining converts to his pretended golden views. His 
operations were systematized more and more, till they extended from Warren 
to the neighboring towns, where he readily found those who became eager to 
sit at the feet of one possessed of so much mystic learning. 

Thus the plans of the schemer progressed to his complete satisfaction, until 
the " Darbyites " began to hold regular night-gatherings with a view to a more 
complete organization, and for the perfecting of certain necessary charms. It 
appears surprising that in so short a time he should have been able to find so 
many victims, all of excellent character and social position. Of course, the 
" Nobodies," as the uninvited were called, were not wanted, — and it was this 
class which stood off and hooted at the " Somebodies." 

The impostor was not long in giving his adherents to understand that nothing 
could be effected without money, — metal must be made to attract metal ; and, 
however close-fisted they may have been in the ordinary affairs of life, the 
excited old farmers and shipmasters contributed liberally of their substance to 
further Darby's scheme. Would they not be repaid a thousandfold when the 
treasures of the "Adventure" galley, buried with many a charm by Kidd's own 
hand, should be given forth to the light of the moon? 

Imagination must have wrought powerfully with them, giving their plodding, 
everyday hearts for the time a kind of poetry. No doubt they had wonderful 
dreams by night and day, and saw many a tempting vision : 

" Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl ; 
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels." 

And now came the placing of the famous " Darby Rings," one of which was- 
situated near the main road between the villages of Warren and Bristol, and 
another at Mount Hope, once the home of the great Indian sachem, King 
Philip ; while others still were, I believe, established. 

The " Darby Ring" was merely a circle of some forty feet in diameter, about 
which the treasure-seekers, in single file, would follow their leader at a dog-trot, 



80 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

reciting some exceedingly silly jargon, and at times pausing to perform such 
grotesque and childish acts as at a more rational moment would have disgusted 
them. A part of my childhood was passed on the premises which embraced 
one of these ; and although nearly forty years had then gone by since the feet 
of the Darbyites had paced its magic round, there were still visible some faint 
traces of what had been. The earth was a little depressed, and the outer edge 
of the circle showed something like a ridge. 

It was in the southeast corner of an orchard ; and, no doubt the soft, golden 
buttercups sprang there in Darby's time, as they did when we children played 
about the spot years and years after. 

The excitement was now at its height. Nothing was thought of among the 
dancing, prancing treasure-hunters but Kidd, with his black flag and his kegs of 
broad doubloons. With wild enthusiasm they recited the lines of the old dog- 
gerel, wherein he recounts his fortune: — ■ 

" I had ninety bars of gold, 

As I sailed, as I sailed; 
I had ninety bars of gold, 

As I sailed ; 
I had ninety bars of gold, 
And dollars manifold, 
And riches uncontrolled, 

As I sailed." 

At each nightly meeting they were required to carry in their hands sticks of 
witch-hazel, which were supposed to possess the power of enabling their holders 
to detect the presence of buried treasure. Thus each devotee had his little rod, 
carefully cut and trimmed in some deep old swamp, where he had sought it out 
with a seriousness and intentness of purpose that one smiles to think upon. 

How they must have looked capering about the ring, each with his stick of 
witch-hazel ! — not boys, but men, — grave, practical old fellows, some of whom 
had, perhaps, that very afternoon been hoeing corn in their own broad fields, 
and others taking account of cargoes of molasses and sugar at the village 
wharves. 

That there might be no disposition to waver in the ranks, it was Darby's 
custom to cheer his retainers with encouraging words; and his smooth and con- 
fident tones were as reassuring to them as the " honk " of the leading gander 
to a flock of wild geese. 

" Only be true to me," he would say, " and I will get the money," — a remark 
of which they saw the significance a great deal better afterwards than they did 
at the time. 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCLETY'S QUEER STORLES. 83 

Their case illustrated the homely aphorism that " they who dance must pay 
the fiddler." 

They were subjected among other things to a constant expenditure for a 
certain wonderful kind of sand, costing sixteen dollars an ounce, which was 
indispensable to the success of Darby's magic, and which he alone could pro- 
cure. It was this which was to unlock the secret of the old-time buccaneer. 

Again and again the supply was exhausted, only to be again and again 
renewed; until it must have seemed, even to those patient trotters about the 
ring, that the spirit who guarded the pirate's gold could be nothing short of 
sand-proof! 

In the centre of the circle there was a hole several feet deep, into which the 
schoolmaster magician and his followers would successively pour small quan- 
tities of the precious material, during the intervals of their antics. 

A sight more unique than that of these decent, well-meaning gentlemen, 
trotting about the enchanted ring, under the shadow of the apple-trees, it 
would not be easy to imagine. Some of them were fat and duck-legged, others 
tall and lean ; but each one kept his pace with tolerable accuracy to the music 
of the Darby chant. 

The inexpressibly comic feature of the case was the entire respectability of 
the actors in this strange scene. They were householders, owners of broad 
farms and. tall ships. Yet trot, trot, trot, they went, around and around, like so 
many mad dogs, in that old Bristol Neck orchard ! They were required, upon 
going home, to write some strange characters with onion juice upon bits of 
paper, which were to be carefully placed under their pillows as assistants to 
divination. The characters were, of course, invisible, but this did not affect 
their potency. 

A paper called the " Herald of the United States " was at the time pub- 
lished in Warren, and in its issue of August 25, 1798, we find a communication 
written while the Darby affair was in full blast, describing many of the per- 
formances, and expressing great disgust at the silliness of the delusion. From 
this it appears that not all our great-grandsires were trotters or prancers, but 
that some of them looked upon the matter very much as we should do to-day. 

At last, even the credulous victims themselves began to lose patience, and 
whispers of discontent were passed from mouth to mouth. It was the begin- 
ning of one of those revolutions which never go backwards. It was discovered 
that the magic sand was obtained from Connecticut, and two trusty members of 
the circle were appointed to visit that State, for the purpose of gathering fur- 
ther information with regard to the mysterious mineral, which, to eyes in some 
measure disenchanted, had already begun to assume a woefully common 
appearance. 



84 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

The result of their mission was a complete exposure of the fraud. With 
but little difficulty they obtained an interview with the very person by whom 
the sand had been furnished, but who, however, disclaimed all knowledge of 
Darby's scheme. As to the magic article itself, they discovered it to be the 
common burden of the sea-shore in the neighborhood of New London, although 
of a more silvery hue than the sand of the Narragansett shore, — a difference 
which the wily impostor had turned to account through the simplicity of his 
followers. 

And now arose the question as to what should be done with the recreant 
magician. Surrounded by his enraged dupes, he was still more than a match 
for them in subtlety of tongue. 

" I never told you that you would get anything," he said. " What I did tell 
was, that if you would only be true to me, / should get the money, and so 
I should have done ! " 

We have thus far followed and quoted our friend Coomer's his- 
torical narrative, as it appeared in a popular paper. Mr. Coomer, an 
excellent poet and writer of sea-stories, lives on the borders of the 
Mt. Hope Lands, near the boundary-line between the towns of War- 
ren and Bristol, and quite near the place where these strange events 
occurred. The high lands near to his home, overlooking the Mt. 
Hope and Narragansett Bays, are full of haunting traditions. They 
are best visited from the ancient highway between the two towns, now 
known as the Back Road. The Rhode Island Soldiers' Home is on 
this beautiful elevation, and the outlook from it commands the most 
picturesque waters in New England. The Kickemuit River is partic- 
ularly beautiful, seen from these flowery and orchard-shaded highlands 
on a mid-summer day. One of Massasoit's Springs was on this 
river, and the great legend of the Northmen is connected with the 
Mt. Hope Bay. We will give this legend later in verse. A ride of 
a few miles, out of Bristol or Warren, would enable the visitor to 
Rhode Island to view from these Back Road farms, or from Mt. Hope, 
the old Pokonoket country, which has the oldest traditional history in 
America. Here it is supposed that the Northmen landed, and here 
certainly is the ancient burying-grounds of the Indian race. Near 



THE FOLK-LORE SOCLE TV'S QUEER STORIES. 



85 



Massasoit Spring in Warren, R. I., Roger Williams spent the famous 
winter of his exile, intent on the problems of soul freedom, and the 
separation of church and state. King Philip must have been a boy 
then. It is proposed to erect a memorial of Massasoit at this spring. 




UTAH STATE BUILDING. 



A very curious legend is associated with the Darby episode. We 
do not know how well it is founded, but we give it here : — 

The men whom he had deceived tarred and feathered him. In 
this disgraceful garment of woe, looking like a gigantic half-plucked 
bird, he ran away, and found shelter for the night in the cellar of one 
of the quiet farmsteads. 

The next morning the or od woman of the house had occasion to 



86 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

go down into the cellar. Her soap barrel, pork barrels, and probably 
cider barrels were there. 

A dark place is an old-time New England cellar, — dark and damp, 
with an earthy smell. Lights burned low there. 

Our good woman probably passed around the foundation walls of 
the great chimney, where was a flue for ashes, passed the potato-bins 
and turnip covers, and, with peering eyes, looked down on one of the 
many platforms for barrels. 

Cellars were haunted places. There was an awful story of a 
woman who murdered her husband, and hid his body under the ash 
barrel, that had taken hold of popular imagination in those revenge- 
ful times, and most people thought of it as they made their uncertain 
ways around the cellars. It was all poky and still, grewsome and 
tomb-like. 

Our srood woman heard a noise. That was not strange. Cats and 
rats dwelt in the cellar, and the latter came out of their hiding-places 
when the former were not at home. 

She was ill prepared for what followed. 

There arose up before her an awful object. Whatever ghost- 
stories she may have heard by kitchen fires in the long evenings, she 
had never had any account of anything like this. 

Its body was like that of Apollyon, as represented in the never-to- 
be-forgotten picture in the " Pilgrim's Progress." But it wore the 
feathers of a goose. 

Erupit! evasit ! Our good woman ascended the cellar stairs with 
a celerity that spoke well for the power of latent nervous force. The 
dreadful figure followed her, begging for mercy, and confessing that 
he was Darby the Impostor. The poor woman supplied his wants, 
and probably provided him with a suit of clothes, when he disappeared 
from society forever. 




^fe,. 



~*****k*. 



THE LAKE FRONT. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE WHITE CITY. 



UT of this legendary and story-telling atmosphere, the 
three Marlowes passed through the country in beauti- 
ful June, and found themselves, in the longest days 
of the year, in that wonder-city of the new world, — 
Chicago. 

" The first story that we will have to hear," said 




Mr. Marlowe, " will be that of the Fair itself." 



THE STORY OF THE FAIR. 

If ever there was a man with the heart and intelligence to welcome the 
world, it is Judge Bonney, whose generous spirit and hearty words millions of 
people will remember. As the leading mind of the Exposition's Auxiliary 
■Congresses, as many as possible of the delegates to the many Congresses met 
him, and the questions which he answered in the Art Palace in Chicago, would 
have filled many Bibles. We hope that he took a long rest after the close of 
the Exposition, for no man ever better earned such a right. 



90 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

With a patience that was beautiful, and ought to serve as a national lesson, 
he met every one courteously, and every last person that met him felt that he 
had found a friend, and left him rejoicing that the newly-collected world was so 
friendly in its representative. His intelligence was equal to his courtesy, and 
his tact to both. The people all have good wishes forever for Judge Bonney. 

Our trio had been told to report to Judge Bonney. They found him at 
his desk in the Art Palace in the city, and one look from him assured them that 
they were expected. 

" Judge," said Ephraim the elder, " I have called with my son here, who is 
a delegate to the Folk-Lore Congress. There are a few things about the Fair 
that I would like to know." 

" I shall be most happy to give you any information that I have, my friend. 
Sit down, sit down." We give the judge's answers from a general memory of 
like scenes. 

" I thank thee, friend Bonney." 

" I see that you are a Quaker," said Judge Bonney. " There are several 
people here already who are interested in the Folk-Lore Congress. I will see 
that you are introduced to them. What are some of the questions which you 
wish to ask? " 

• "Well, friend Bonney, what is the history of this great Fair? How did it 
originate? " 

" In the minds of many, who agreed to. act as one," we may 
imagine the answer to have been. We shall speak of this topic again. 
We are inclined to the belief that the secret of the success of the Fair 
may be found in the fact of this supposed answer. 

" By whom was Chicago selected as the site of the Fair? " 

" This city was selected as the site of the Fair by vote of the National 
House of Representatives, February 24, 1890." 

" What other cities were voted upon? " 

" New York, St. Louis, and Washington." 

" When did Congress authorize the Fair?" 

"The Act of Congress authorizing the Fair was approved April 25, 1890. 
This was followed by the President's Proclamation, inviting all nations to par- 
ticipate, which was issued December 24, 1890. The World's Fair Grounds 
were dedicated October 21, 1892. Preceding the opening of the Fair, May i„ 



THE STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE WHITE CITY. 



91 



1893, was the grand Naval Review in New York Harbor, April 26, 27, 28, 

1893." 

" How about the appropriations, friend Bonney? Where did the money- 
come from? " 




STATUE OF THE REPUBLIC AND MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



" From various sources. The States and territories appropriated nearly 
$5,000,000, and foreign countries nearly $6,000,000. The capital stock 
amounts to $5,000,000, the City of Chicago Bonds to $5,000,000, the Souvenir 
half-dollars (appropriated by Congress), to $2,500,000, and the Debenture 
Bonds to $4,000,000." 

" What is the total value of the exhibits? " 

" It is estimated to be $300,000,000." 

" What will the Fair cost? " 

" The total estimated expense is $21,250,000." 

" How many visitors are expected? " 

" It is expected that there will be about 20,000,000 visitors." 



92 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

"The gate receipts from them would amount to $10,000,000. How much 
ground does the Fair cover?" 

"The total number of acres in the Exposition Grounds is 633, of which 
Jackson Park occupies 553 acres, the Midway Plaisance, 80, the space avail- 
able for buildings, 556, and the Interior Waterways (61 acres) and Wooded 
Island, 77." 

" Now I wish to know something about the size of the different buildings. 
Which is the largest one?" 

"The Manufactures Building is the largest. It is 1,687 f eet l° n g> an d 787 
feet wide, covering 44 acres of floor. Its cost was $1,600,750. Of the other 
buildings, the Stock Sheds cover 25 acres, the Machinery Building and Annex, 
23.2 acres, the Agricultural Building and Annex, 19 acres, the Transportation 
Building, 17.9 acres, the Electricity Building, 9.3 acres, the Building of Mines, 
8.5 acres, and the Building of Horticulture, 8 acres. The total number of acres 
covered by buildings is 240." 

" How much did they cost, Judge Bonney? " 

" Twelve million two hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars." 

" How many other World's Fairs have been held, and where? " 

" Between the years 185 1 and 1889, eight World's Fairs were held, — two 
of them in London, four in Paris, one in Vienna, and one in Philadelphia." 

" How does the size of the grounds here compare with those of the other 
World's Fairs, Judge Bonney? " 

" Of the previous World's Fairs, that of Paris in 1889 covered the largest 
area — 200 acres — which is not quite one third the size of this." 

" How many visitors had that Fair? " 

" Twenty-eight million, one hundred and forty-nine thousand, three hundred 
and fifty-three." 

" Now, Judge Bonney, tell me about the World's Fair Auxiliary and its 
Congresses, of which you are the representative. When do the Congresses 
meet, and where? " 

" There are nineteen Departments of the Congresses of the W 7 orld Fair 
Auxiliary. Each lasts usually a week. In May we held the Congress of 
Woman's Progress, Public Press, and Medicine ; in June, will be those of 
Temperance, Moral and Social Reform, and Commerce and Finance; in July, 
of Music, Literature, Education, Engineering, and Art ; in August, of Govern- 
ment, Science and Philosophy, and Labor ; in September, of the Departments 
of Religion; and in October, the closing month of the Fair, those of Sunday 
Rest, Public Health, and Agriculture." 

The good judge took the trio into the Hall of Columbus and the Hall of 



-% 



SE 



^•4C 










; , ^A 




THE STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE WHITE CITY. 95 

Washington, and the various art rooms in the Palace where the Congresses 
were to meet. The engines shrieked as they passed the sunny windows, and 
the blue lake rolled afar as in fathomless distance. The world seemed on the 
march in the great avenues below the balconies. Near by rose the Great 
Auditorium, and near it a colossal bridge led the way to the steamers and 
cars. 

How bright and happy the world looked from the open windows of the 
smoke-colored Art Palace. As they passed one of those windows, the White 
City some miles distant, gleamed afar over the blue lake like a radiant vision. 
Constantinople from the Golden Horn was not as celestial and beautiful. 

" White, Judge Bonney," said old Ephraim. 

" Yes, my friend, it is built of Staff." 

" Judge Bonney, what is Staff? " 

" Staff is a mixture of plaster — often called plaster of Paris — and a small 
per cent of cement, into which are introduced frequent fibres of hemp, jute, or 
Sisal grass, to give it toughness, so that it may be bent, sawn, nailed, or bored, 
at will." 

" How is it cast? " 

" It is cast in moulds. The plaster and cement are first wet up to the con- 
sistency of thick treacle, a layer of which is spread on the well-lubricated mould. 
Then follows a layer of the long, tough fibres ; over this is poured another 
coating of the liquid plaster, covering in the fibre and filling the mould to the 
required depth." 

" Are there many moulds ? "' 

" Yes, there are a thousand or more of different patterns and sizes, from 
those for casting plain staff-board for walls, to those for the most complex, 
beautiful, or fantastic ornamentation." 

" Are statues ever made of it? " 

:< Yes, both statues and statuary groups. The moulds are first fashioned in 
clay, then coated with staff." 

" How long does it take to make it ready for use ? " 

" Oh, in the course of half an hour the composition hardens sufficiently to 
be handled and taken away to the buildings in process of construction." 

" How long will it last? " 

" If kept painted, it will withstand the weather for a number of years. If 
it cracks or crumbles off, it can readily be repaired with a brush or trowel, 
from a tub of the liquid mixture. It is fireproof, and, to a great degree, 
waterproof." 



9 6 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



" They say, Judge Bonney, that there is a sidewalk there that goes all by 
itself. Is that so? Tell us all about it." 

" The Multiple Speed Sidewalk is also called the Travelling Sidewalk, or 
the Locomotive Sidewalk. It is a mechanical device for facilitating travel on 




MICHIGAN AVENUE. 



the long pier — nearly one half a mile long and two hundred and fifty- feet 
w jde — near the Peristyle, thus enabling the tourist to make the trip over the 
pier in ease and comfort, refreshed by the lake breeze. The sidewalk, which 
traverses the entire length of the pier on one side, returns on the other, 
making a loop at each end. It is on low wheels. There are two parallel sec- 
tions, or platforms, one moving at a rate of three miles an hour, about ordinary 
walking speed, and the other at six miles an hour, an easy driving rate. One 
may ride on either section." 

The Judge led the trio back to his room. It was crowded with people 
seeking information. 



THE STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE WHITE CITY. 97 

" I am obliged to you, Judge Bonney, for those bits of information. But 
what are these few things that I have learned to a Fair like that ? I '11 call 
again, Judge Bonney, and give you a chance to tell us some more. T is n't 
often that I find a man so well stocked with information about the world." 

Judge Bonney did not look tired. With a serene face he met the crowd 
awaiting him, many of whom would ask him these questions over again. Our 
fancied interview is but a picture of the Judge's work for nearly a year. 

The Marlowes, under the influence of the officers of the World's 
Auxiliary, who invited them to a literary reception soon after their 
arrival, arranged to spend their home-life in Chicago with Mr. and 
Mrs. Edmand, who led a Folk-Lore Society which met at their home 
on Michigan Avenue. The Edmands family were from New England, 
and had known the Marlowes by reputation, and received them as 
their guests. It was agreed between the Edmands and their guests 
that the Folk-Lore Society should meet every Saturday evening, and 
that, on these occasions, the ' Marlowes should relate as a part of the 
exercises Folk-Lore stories. 

The first of these stories that was told at the Saturday evening- 
meetings was " Miraculous Susan of Quaker Hill." It was told by 
Grandfather Marlowe, and we shall give it in its place. Another 
of these stories was " Hannah, Who Sang Countre." It was told by 
Mr. Marlowe, who illustrated it by singing old-time tunes. This we 
shall also give in an interval between the sight-seeing at the Fair. 




CHICAGO IN 1830. 



CHAPTER V. 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS — THE CITY OF THE 20TH CENTURY. 



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HE first purpose of our tourists was to see Chicagp, 
the wonder of the West. 

They began at the Art Palace, where the statue of 
La Salle met their view on the boulevard, bringing 
to mind those December days of 1681, when the bold 
explorer coasted along the southern shore of Lake 
Michigan, and ascended the Chicago River, on his way to the Missis- 
sippi. Did he dream on that day that he entered the Chicago that 
the live city of the West would be there ? 

There were great arches of bridges between the statue and the 
Art Palace, and all the world seemed passing to the railroad and the 
boats. The Lake rolled in splendor before the towering buildings, 
but everything, the Art Palace included, seemed discolored with 
smoke. The doors of the great Art Palace stood open, as it were, to 




,1 -■ . STi- i ' **t| 



*>•■ VIS 




CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 



IOI 



receive the homeless multitudes, coming from everywhere. It was the 
hospitable door of Chicago. 

It was a short walk from the Art Palace to the Auditorium Build- 
ing, which is a grand hotel and a theatre, and whose corridors might 
have been halls of the Pharaohs, they are so dazzling, airy, and beauti- 
ful. Every one here seemed to be in a hurry. If each one's life were 
to be fated to end with the day, no one 
could be more in a hurry. Yet every one 
looked happy ; it was not an anxious hur- 
ry, but an inspired hurry. New York is 
slow and Boston slower, but here is the 
clock of destiny, and one must do, ere it 
strike. The Chicagoan loves Chicago, 
and resolves to make it the grandest city 
in the world. 

The dream is likely to be fulfilled. Our 
good Quaker friend said to a boy in the 
pillared waiting-room of the Auditorium : 

" My boy, how many miles is it to 
Boston ? " 

The boy gave a lightning glance, gath- 
ered up his mouth for one long breath, 
and answered : — 

"Thirty-two hours from Boston (i 150 
miles) ; twenty-nine hours from Montreal ; twenty-six hours from New 
York; twenty-four hours from Philadelphia; twenty-six hours from 
Washington; three and a half days from San Francisco; five days 
from the City of Mexico ; nine days from Queenstown ; ten days 
from Paris ; fifteen days from Rome, and sixteen from St. Petersburg. 
Are there any other places that you would- like to inquire about?" 

" The land of the ocean ! No, not now. You seem to know all 
about the world. Who is your father, my lad ? " 




LA SALLE. 



102 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Daddyism don't count in Chicago. You came from the East." 

" Yes, I came from the East ; and how might a man from the East 
best see Chicago ? " 

"Take an elevator — don't you know the dining-room here is up 
top, and the roof sweeps the city, the Lake, the Fair and everything ! " 

" Take an elevator? " said our sedate friend. "I never take any; 
I favor temperance principles." 

" Oh, then take the elevator. There, it is running now!" 

" How many inhabitants do you claim, my lad ? " 

The answer was as extraordinary as the first : — 

" South Division, half a million and more ; West Division, half a 
million and more ; North Division, quarter of a million and more. I 
reckon we are about two million in all. Can't keep the run of the 
census here." 

" My boy, if I should conclude to go to Lincoln's tomb at Spring- 
field, what road would I take ? " 

The answer was more amazing still : — 

" Oh, take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. and change, or the C. A. 
and change, or the C. I. If you take the C. A. or the A. T. S. F. or 
the C. I., you will have to change in this way " — Here the boy began 
such a distortion of the alphabet as could only be heard in a primary 
school. 

" Do you know all the railroads that go out of Chicago ? " asked 
the Quaker. 

" Most of them. There 's the A. T. and S. F; the B. and O. ; the 
C. B. and Q. ; the C. E. and L. S. ; the C. M. and S. P.; the C. R. I. 
and P.; the C. S. P. and K. C. ; the C. and A.; the C. and E. ; the 
C. and E. I.; the C. and G. T. ; the C. and N. ; the C. and N. P. ; 
the C. and S. ; the C. and W. M. ; the C. and W. I. ; the C. C. C. and 
S. L., which is the Big 4; the I. C. ; the L. S. and M. C. ; the M. 
C; the M. L. S. and W. ; the M. P.; the N. Y. C. and St. L. Nickle 
Plate; the P. F. W. and W. ; and the W. C." 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 105 

" If you wish to go to Springfield by a zigzag, picturesque kind of 
route, take the — " Here the boy went off into the alphabet again. 

" I am afraid I would never get there," said our good friend, with 
uplifted hands. " I think that we have about concluded to go to Lin- 
coln Park." 

The party did not find this an easy matter. They went to State 
Street; the sidewalks were thronged with hurrying crowds; high 
buildings towered in the sunny and smoky air. 

" If I were to come to Chicago," said the confused Quaker, " I 
would eo into the business of collars and cuffs. Mine were clean 
when I started out — just see them now ! But everybody looks clean ; 
how do they do it ? " 

After many directions from policemen, the party found the car 
for the famous park which is the delight and summer rest of Chicago. 
How lovely it was ! The great bronze statue of Lincoln arose before 
the province of greenery ; the Lake rippled near, expanding in purple 
glory. They hurried toward the Zoological Gardens, which are 
amone the finest in the world. The parks and park lands of Chicago 
are many, and cover nearly two thousand acres. • But Lincoln Park, 
with its lake view and animal shows, has a charm that exceeds all 
others, and not the least of its attractions is " Admission Free." 

On their return from the park, where they visited the Grant 
Statue, the flower gardens, and the wonderful collections of tamed 
animals, the party went to the Auditorium Building, and looked down 
from the top on the city as it lay spread out in the sunset. How 
different was the scene from the fort and little hamlet in 1S30 ! The 
city practically filled the view. 

The Post-office and Masonic Buildings are works of marvellous 
strength and beauty ; the stranger would pause in awe before them, 
did not the crowd at all hours of the day hurry him on. One cannot 
conveniently stop to talk on the streets in the activity of this rapid 
city. The Women's Temple is one of the noblest structures ever 



io6 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



erected for benevolent work by women, and the Produce Exchange 
fittingly expresses its purpose. 

The Palmer House is associated with the history of the city since 




PRODUCE EXCHANGE. 



the fire, as few other buildings have been. There are few business 
men in the country who have not at some time stopped there. The 
beautiful private residence of its proprietor is famous for its hospi- 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 



IO9 



tality, and is as unique as it is noble. The women of America are 
proud of the record of Mrs. Potter Palmer, and are glad that a woman 
of such public spirit can organize her plans in such a liberal home. 
The private residences of Mr. Kimball, Mr. McVeach, and the long 
procession of mansions on Michigan Avenue, display an air, not of 



f -I^Pfy 




**!>»' 

^**! 








MR. POTTER PALMER. 



MRS. POTTER PALMER. 



ease and rest, but of purpose and energy. They picture the spirit of 
the times. 

There are few public buildings in Europe that display a more 
massive grandeur than the City Hall. It looks like a colossal palace 
reared upon lofty foundations, and one from abroad would think that 
such a structure would have cost the labor of a score of years. The 
city is full cf buildings from eight to sixteen or more stories high, that 
look like towers. 

The Union Stock- Yards here are the largest in the world. They 
cover three hundred and fifty or more acres with more than eight 
miles of streets, — a city of cattle. More than $200,000,000 worth of 
live-stock are sold here annually. 



I 10 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



Chicago is the world's granary. Her grain-elevators would make 
a city. She handles some 150,000,000 bushels of grain a year. 

The Chicago River in 1830 flowed clear and full in view. It is now 
shut into bridges, and is hardly noticed. The arrival and clearances 
of vessels in Chicago harbor greatly exceed those of New York, and 

are probably as many 
as or more than at the 
ports of New York 
and Boston combined. 
The lofty and 
substantial buildings 
greatly interested the 
good Quaker, and on 
returning to the wait- 
ing-room of the Au- 
ditorium, he met the 
bright boy who had 
given him such lumi- 
nous instructions in 
regard to the rail- 
roads. 

" Well, I found the 

park," said our friend. 

" Took the N. C. S. or W. S. cable, I suppose ? " said the boy. 

"I think so; the X. Y. Z. or Q. R. S. T. it might have been. I 

like that park ; it is like the story that had no end. What are your 

very tallest houses here, my lad ? " 

" There 's the Ashland Block, sixteen stones high ; this Audito- 
rium, seventeen stories high ; C. C. B., thirteen stories high ; C. M. 
B., fourteen stories high ; M. B., sixteen stories high ; and the Masonic 
Building, twenty stories high." 

" There, there, that will do — twenty stories high ! " 




RESIDENCE OF MR. M C VEACH. 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 



113 




RESIDENCE OF MR. KIMBALL. 



" There are many others, sir ; the U. B., sixteen stories high, 

and — " 

" You need n't go over the 

alphabet any more. Why, 

boy, it would make me crazy 

to live here. My house is n't 

but two stories high ; it is 

an A. B. C. D. house in the 

perpendicular style of archi- 
tecture." 

The party went to the 

great pork-packing establish- 
ment. Here the poor pig 

has hardly a chance to squeal 

between his easy rural life 

and sausage meat. The 

name of Mr. P. D. Armour is associated with an industry, or business, 

such as the good New England farmer never dreamed of in his 

simple life, when two pigs, 
killed after an heroic strug- 
gle, were the supply for his 
frugal pork barrel. Corn, 
beef, and pork are supply 
cities by themselves. 

The railroad stations, too, 
would constitute a city. 
What wonder that the boys 
say C. B. O. and I. C. and 
C. N. W.~and C. S. M. 
W. D.! 
The city stretches into suburbs, which themselves widen away 

and exhibit the outlines of new suburbs. The Hyde Park suburb, 







HIGH BUILDINGS IN CHICAGO. 



ii4 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



Pullman, and other towns that make a semi-circle, are in themselves 
famous. The Mississippi Valley, the old East, the great lake country 

of the North, — all seem to focus here- 
Chicago will be the City of the Twen- 
tieth Century. 

The eastern and the old world tour- 
ists come here with narrow views and 
criticism, to which the true Chicagoan 
has neither the time nor the interest to 
so much as listen. When this type of 
man enters into the spirit of Chicago, 
and feels the new life, he often becomes 
wonderfully enthusiastic. He lives for 
the future, and under new horizons ; 
his soul becomes prophetic ; he feels 
that the age of humanity is at hand, and 

A TEN-STORY HOUSE. . . . . , • -i t 

that the city by the great inland sea is 
to be the capital ; and he merges himself in the multitude, and his 





A PORK-PACKING ESTABLISHMENT. 



private interest becomes the good of the whole. All of the enter- 
prises are his ; all of the builders are building for him. He has a 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 



115 



part in every new structure, enter- 
prise, and beautiful house. One 
cannot understand this spirit until 
he has felt it. 

The men who lead, inspire him. 
Davis, Palmer, Pullman, Armour, 
the grain-merchants, the public 
officers, are self-made men. In- 
vention and energy are here re- 
warded. The whole spirit of the 
place says " Advance ; " progress 





MR. P. D. ARMOUR. 



A PIG KILLER. 



proclaims " I will." Force and 
Chicago are one. 

Go to the Temple, the scene 
of the activities of the Woman's 
Christian Temperance Union. 
It cost a million of dollars. 
It is the centre of the work 
of the largest organization of 
women in the world ; of ten 
thousand moral reform socie- 
ties in the country. All its 
directors are women. 

Glance at the life of its 
President, Miss Frances Eliza- 
beth Willard : of New England 
ancestry, educated at Oberlin, 
takine a front rank as an edu- 



n6 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



cator, living now on the platform, and wherever she goes carrying 
her pen in hand. She projected the Woman's Christian Temper- 




RESIDENCE OF MR. POTTER PALMER. 

ance Union, is the leader of the White Cross work, and one of the 
leaders of the National Council of Women. She has set her New 

England character everywhere in the 
West. She represents what the true 
Chicago woman means to be to her age 
and Generation. What does such an 
example say to girls ? What to all as- 
pirators towards a worthy life ? 

Stand before the hospitable doors of 
the castle-like mansion where Mrs. Potter 
Palmer has been accustomed to receive 
all worthy workers in the cause of hu- 
manity and progress. One is proud to 
feel, in the atmosphere of such a place, 
that in America queens are born, and that 
their social thrones are won by nobility. That woman and her friends 




MR. PULLMAN. 



CHICAGO AND ITS MAKERS. 



117 



gave to the Exposition a soul, or made the White City voice what 
is spiritual. Such women put reform into stone and called it the 
Temple. They will one day begin a daily journalism that shall lead 
all that is best in the mind and heart of mankind. 

Go to Pullman, some ten miles away. It has been called the 
model town of the working-men. What does such a suburb say to 
the American youth ? Mr. George 
M. Pullman once rode on an old- 
fashioned sleeping-car. He found 
it a hard experience. He did not 
sleep. But out of that experience 
he invented. The Pullman Sleep- 
ing Car was the result. People 
now travel and sleep. " Invent 
what is needed," so says Pullman. 

Mr. Pullman began life as a 
clerk in a country store. He now 
owns a town and employs fifteen 
thousand people. " Answer the 
world's needs," says the spirit of 
the thrifty town, " and you shall be supplied in the supply." 

The builders of the expanding city by the Lake were poor boys. 
Invention, energy, honesty made their success. Like Dr. Livingston, 
when he graduated from Glasgow University, most of them can say, — 
" I never had a dollar that I did not earn ! " They do not merely 
exist, — they live. When they have passed their generation they will 
have left behind them a new creation of life. 




RESIDENCE OF MR. PULLMAN. 




BYZANTINE DOOR OF THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING. 



CHAPTER VI. 




THE MARLOWES' FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. THE MOST USEFUL 

THING AT THE FAIR. 

A KING a Cottage Grove car, the Mario wes entered 
the Fair Grounds on one beautiful summer morning, 
by the long way of the Midway Plaisance, in search 
of the Funniest Thing, the Most Useful Thing, and 
the Grandest Thing. 

The sky was as blue as the Lake, and the Lake as 
blue as the sky on this morning, and the sun filled the sky with living 
light, and under it shone the White City, the most beautiful city on 
which the sun ever shone, — the city of all the ideals of the past and 
the hopes of the future, the first city of the new order of the world. 
They passed the turn-style, and looking round, saw the word exit. 
" I will tell you a funny story which I heard at the boarding- 
house in regard to that word," said young Ephraim. " There was an 
Illinois boy who had earned money enough to go to the Fair, and fifty 
cents to go in, and he planned to enter early and stay late, and so see 
all of the Fair in one day. He paid his fifty cents for a ticket, and 



THE MAR LOWES 1 FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. 12 I 

passed through the turn-style, and looked up and read ' E-x-i-t.' ' Does 
it cost anything to go in there ? ' he asked of an officer. ' Of course 
not,' answered the officer. ' Then I must see it,' he said ; ' I want to 
see everything.' And he saw it" 

" I do not regard that as a funny story," said Mr. Marlowe. " I 
could hardly think of anything more pathetic. How that poor boy 
must have felt when he found himself on the outside. It would be 
like entering a gate of Paradise, and going back by some by-way into 
the world again. I shall not put that among the funny stories in my 
note-book." 

The long Plaisance, which was an avenue where lived nearly all of 
the nations of the world in harmony, swept before them, and over it 
gleamed the towers and domes of the White City. 

If young Ephraim's story was pathetic rather than funny, an 
incident occurred at their first journey up the Plaisance which was 
comical. 

A street performer was taking gold crowns or sovereigns out of 
his nose. 

The trio stopped to witness the wonderful feat. When the 
wonder-worker wanted a gold piece, he had only to tap his nose, and 
out it would come. 

Old Ephrairn, whose quiet Quaker life had not made him much 
acquainted with such tricks, looked on with curious surprise. 

" Where do those gold pieces come from ? " he asked. 

"Out of my nose!" said the juggler. "Don't you see?" 

" It does look so, but thee can't trust experience always, so Kant 
says. Let me see thee do that again." 

" Here you see the gold pieces in my hand. See! Now I will 
close my hand. See ! Now the coins are in my nose. You can't see. 
Now I will take them out again. See ! " 

He did. 

" That is a very wonderful thing to do, my friend. I never saw 



122 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




GERMAN VILLAGE. 



the like of it before. Suppose now you put those gold pieces into my 
pocket here, and see if you can take them out again ! " 

The man of wonders stared, and shook his head. 

" Na, na. Where you come from ? You be one Yankee. Goot 
day ! " 

The Plaisance was thronging with bright, happy faces. Orientals 
mingled with the people from all the States. Our trio stopped at the 
Indian Village, and thence went to the Dahomey Village. AH the 
world seemed to be at home, and prosperous, happy, and hospitable. 
Here were Austrian houses; yonder Chinese pavilions, like golden air. 
Along one side of the avenue ran a sleighing track, where swift sleighs 




FERRIS WHEEL. 



THE MARLOWES' FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. 



125 









1* 







CAPTIVE BALLOON. 



glided over a snow-scene under the burning sun. Here was the 
Roman Village ; yonder the Tower of Babel loomed over the whole. 
Here was a Moorish palace, yonder Dutch settlements ; here an 
ostrich farm, there Asian and African bazars, and mid these neigh- 
boring families of the world, a glory of mosques and minarets. 

The trio hurried on towards the gleaming minarets, the captive 
balloon, and the Ferris Wheel. 

They stopped at the Ferris Wheel, and looked up into the air. 

" That is the greatest merry-go-round in all the world," said a clever- 
looking visitor. 

" Let us go over," said young Ephraim to his father. 

" Had we better go over now, or had we better wait until another 
day ? " 



126 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



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LOOKING SOUTHEAST FROM THE FERRIS WHEEL. 



" Now," said young Ephraim. 

" Now," said his grandfather. " I always wanted to see the world, 
and I shall when I circle sky in those hanging cars." 

The trio entered one of the cars, and sat down in the chairs. 

" It is just like a room," said old Mr. Marlowe. " I do believe that 
we are moving up." 

Slowly the earth began, as it seemed, to descend, and they found 
themselves in the air. The horizon grew; the great blue lake, the 
White City in dazzling whiteness, moved into view, and then sank 
downward ; the smoky city of Chicago rose, and fell into the shadows. 
Slowly, slowly the car moved up towards the sky. 



THE M A R 'LOWES' FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. 



129 




HAGENBACKS MUSEUM. 



" We shall see the whole earth soon," said Grandfather Marlowe. 

But no — the car was descending, and Chicago, the White City, 
and the Lake and the merry Plaisance, all came back again. They 
went over a second time. The stranger was right, — it was the 
greatest merry-go-round in all the world. 

As they passed the wheel the wonders grew. They stopped to see 
the Hao;enback menaoeries, or animal shows. In the arena was a lion 
that drove a chariot and rode on horseback. Grandfather Marlowe 
said that he disapproved of all such "doin's;" but his opinion grew 
out of sympathy for the horse. 

Near the Blarney Castle and Irish Village was an old-time New 

9 



T30 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




IRISH VILLAGE, — DONEGAL CASTLE. 



England cottage, where meals were served in colonial style ; and across 
the way was a model working-men's house, after which pattern 172,000 
houses had been built in the suburbs of Philadelphia, by a wise and 
worthy building association. These houses cost about twenty- 
two hundred dollars, and were paid for out of small savings, through 
co-operative banks and like means. The purpose of the noble 
Philadelphia Society was to make good citizens by such homes. It 
requires character to save money ; it forms prudent habits to lay 
aside money for a home in early life. 

The trio visited this model house. It was the perfection of home- 
like beauty and convenience. 



THE MARLOWES' FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR 



131 





HORTICULTURAL BUILDING. 

" I think," said Mr. Marlowe, " that I have found in this house 
the most useful thing at the Fair. One would have to travel far to 
meet with anything more useful than that. The most useful thing 
on earth is a home. I think that I have found one thing to report to 
our Society, and I have not seen the Fair yet. 

" Every city," he added, " ought to do what Philadelphia has done, 
if it would make good citizens. Think of it, 172,000 houses for 
working-people, like that! The millennium must be near!" 

" I think," said Grandfather Marlowe, " that that is the most useful 
thing that we shall see. It is worth coming all the way here just to 
see that." 

" But," said young Ephraim, " that is the most simple thing we 
have met." 



1^2 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

They went out of the house. The avenue seemed swarming. , 

"Pretty much all of the world must be here by this time," said 
Grandfather Marlowe, " and there seems to be more coming. I declare 
it does beat ail ! " 

The Ferris Wheel was turning in the bright air; the villages were 
filled with shouts and music. 

Suddenly there was a great excitement among the crowds near., 
An Oriental wedding procession was coming out into the avenue from 
the " Street in Cairo." 

The trio stopped to gaze at the wonder. " Let us go into the 
Street of Cairo," said young Ephraim. 

" No, not to-day," said Mr. Marlowe ; " I have been reading about 
that street : we must take a whole day for that." The trio passed 
under the long dark bridge, Slowly from the shadow they entered 
the White City. 

Ephraim Marlowe the Quaker stopped and stamped three times 
on the ground as the dazzling splendor rose before him. He lifted 
his hand, and said, " Manton, Manton, for J>i/ys sake I " 

They passed the Woman's Building, and the Transportation Build- 
ing with its dazzling entrance, which looked as though it were a 
sunrise of jewels, and came to the Administration Building, whose 
pale gold dome shone like a vision about to vanish into the air. They 
mounted the steps, turned, and looked clown the Court of Honor, 
towards the Peristyle and Lake Michigan. 

The three stood in silence. Mr. Marlowe laid his hand on his 
father's shoulder, and shed tears. His son took him by the hand. 

The white walls of the Court of Honor, with their heroic statues, 
and allegories in plaster, shone in the sun in blinding glory. Just 
below in the lagoon was the most beautiful fountain on earth. At the 
end of the lagoon rose the golden-hued Statue of Liberty, and beyond 
it the most beautiful and majestic structure in all the world, called 
the Peristyle, white as glistening marble, and surmounted by the 



THE MARLOWES' FIRST DAY AT THE FAIR. 



135 



Quadriga. Through the white arches of the Peristyle and its proces- 
sion of heroic statues lay the Lake, blue as a June sky, and covered 
with boats, vessels, and steamers. Multiform and many-colored flags 
bloomed like flowers over and against all these colossal walls of white. 
Congresses of statued heroes were here and there assembled in the 
niches of immortality. Overhead rose the 
white allegories of the elements, controlled 
and uncontrolled. Bands played. Tens of 
thousands of people darkened the walks and 
avenues. There was happiness everywhere; 
continuance was all that was wanting. The 
trio stood there amazed, bewildered, and 
unable for a time to speak. 

Grandfather Marlowe was the first to 
break the silence. 

" Let us go away, and find some little 
corner and die. That is how I feel." 

" Let us sit down on the steps," said Mr. 
Marlowe, "and thank God that we are alive." 

'• Let us go into the Liberal Arts Build- 
ing," said young Ephraim. 

" I have no wish to see any exhibits to- 
day," said Mr. Marlowe. " I shall never again behold a vision like 
this, — I could gaze for weeks upon it." 

" There is only one thing that is wanting," said Grandfather 
Marlowe. 

"What is that?" asked Mr. Marlowe. 

" A white-bordered flae ! " 

" They may raise one here some day," said Mr. Marlowe. 

" I hope that I may live to see that sight," said the aged Quaker; 
" to me it would be a sign of the Second Coming. I could die con- 
tent could I see the sigrht." 




ATLAS. 



136 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CI TV. 

They went to the Liberal Arts Building, and looked in upon its 
forty acres of floors. They then passed down to the long wharf, and 
sat down to rest on the seats of the movable Sidewalk, in which they 
might sit for hours for five cents each, and go around and around in 
the cool breezes of the Lake. Here they took the famous " whale- 
back " steamer for the City. They never had passed a day like that ! 
No one ever passed such a day as one's first day at the Exposition, 
and none ever will again. 

The Past emptied itself there ; the Future anticipated there 
her glory. The Fair ! the Fair ! It was all the world was, is, or ever 
could be. 

" Father," said young Ephraim, " across whose mind did the con- 
ception of the White City first pass?" 

" I do not know/' 
. " We must ask Judge Bonney," said Grandfather Marlowe. 

When they asked this information, they were told that the White 
City was the product of the minds of an assembly of artists, each of 
whom promised to give up in his own work ." anything that might 
interfere with the beauty of the whole." 

" What a lesson ! " said the old Quaker. " If all people would do 
that, how beautiful all the world would be ! " 

" I think,'' said Mr. Marlowe, " that I have found the most useful 
exhibit at the Fair." 

"You still think that it is the Quaker City house?" said Grand- 
father Marlowe. 

" I do." 

" And if I could only see the white -bordered flag floating over the 
Court of Honor," said the Quaker, " I could show you the grandest 
sight on earth." 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 




HE next day the sun rose glorious on the blue Lake 
and White City. Our trio went in the morning to 
visit Lincoln Park, but returned at noon, and took 
the Cottage Grove car for the Fair. They entered 
the grounds again by the way of the long avenue 
of the Plaisance, and there 
they found all the world at home again. 
They went to the Street in Cairo. 
As they passed in they noticed a young col- 
ored man and woman, who were talking so loudly 
as to attract attention. The young woman was 
gayly dressed indeed. Her hat was conspicuous 
even in the Street of Cairo. It was a kind of 
pyramid of feathers, flowers, and streamers. Her 
dress was as Oriental, and she evidently carried a 
very happy heart. The young man looked as 
happy ; his face shone. 

An Oriental wedding procession was moving 
through the street, and in it an Asiatic lady was 
riding on a camel. 

How proud she looked, swaying to and fro, her 
body in graceful motion with that of the camel ! 

" Wot is that ? " asked the young colored 
woman of one of the guards. 




WATER TOWER. 



138 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



" That is the ship of the desert." 

" Does it make one sick to sail in dat dare ship ?' 

" No, no ; don't you see how she rides ? That is a bridal party." 

" I am a bride ; we is. That is wot we 
dj$& are," said the young woman, happy hearted. 
I' ^^» The groom looked radiant. 

The flags were flying ; the music was 




gyasfflsfeascTjes 



playing ; the bazaars 
were all life and gay- 
ety. 

The young colored 
woman looked envi- 
ously on the golden 
trappings of the pro- 
cession, and said, with 
a shadow of despond- 
ency, " She outdoes me, she does. I 'd like to ride on dat dare 
camel mysel'." 

" You can do so," said a listener. " Many people make their wed- 
ding tour through the Street of Cairo on the camel." 
The young woman looked happy indeed. 



LINCOLN PARK. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 



141 




DAMASCAN SWORDSMEN. 



The procession with its gay music and trappings broke up at last, 
and the tall camel came to a place near the gate and knelt down on a 
mat in obedience to his keeper. 

" Who wants to make a wedding tour through the Street of 
Cairo? " shouted a manager. 

" -I — I — I !" answered the young colored woman, her hat bob- 
bing. A crowd gathered around the scene, a comical grin on every 
face. 

The camel lay meek, like a great bundle of bones on the mat. He 
stretched out his long neck and displayed a vicious-looking mouth. 

The young woman mounted the saddle, which was easy. 



T42 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" You follow me, Ben," she said to her young husband, " I might 
need your obsistence." 

There could not have been a happier couple on earth. 

The camel driver made a queer sound. 

Some one shouted, " Now hold on, Miss Dinah, the camel is going 
to rise." 

The camel did rise indeed, — not on his fore legs, but he rose up 
behind, as if his back had been shot up out of the earth. 

"Dinah" grasped the saddle, and fell forward, exclaiming, " Holy 
Moses ! " A wild look came into her face. Then the front part of 
the camel rose up, and the sable bride found herself in the air. 

" Here yo' dar, yo', let me get off ! Stop ! dis yere beast am all 
broke up. No lady can ride in dis yere way. Stop! Whoa!" 

But the camel driver did not heed. The camel began his swaying 
motion, tossing Dinah, if we may so call her, up into the air in this 
way, and then in another. It was such a comical sight that the good- 
natured crowd stood laughing, each one looking at the other, to share 
the humor. 

As the camel passed down the street, its upheaving motions 
increased. 

" Whoa, dar! " shouted Dinah. " Stop yer wobblin' dar! Driver, 
stop, dar, I '11 fall off ! Dar, I 'm goin right ober now ! Whoa ! If 
you don't stop him I '11 hollar ! " 

The camel gave a sidling lurch, sending Dinah high up into the 
air with her ribbons and feathers flying. The crowd followed her, 
laughing. 

Down the street she went, shouting, " Stop, dar ! Stop, dar ! " tossed 
this way and that, and once threatening the philosophical driver with 
— "If you don't stop dat dare critter, I'll cry ' Perlice, murder!' 
But the camel driver did not heed. 

The camel stopped at length and turned back again, sawing the 
air. He stopped at length at the mat. Dinah's face grew happy 
again, and she laughed with the crowd. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 1 45 

" Ben," she said, " did n't I ride like a queen ? " 

She added, " How am I ever to get down way up here in de air? " 

Dinah surveyed the great crowd. There was an acre more or less 
of people, with mouths stretched from ear to ear. It was not a pro- 
voking merriment, not sarcastic, nor that mean mirth that ridicules 
weakness. It was all sympathetic, good hearted, and good natured. 

The camel driver gave another queer sound, somewhat like that at 
the beginning of the ride. 

Dinah's question as to how she was to get down was suddenly 
answered, and without any ceremony. 

The camel seemed in an instant to collapse, and fall down all in a 
heap. 

When Dinah found the high-backed animal falling as it were all 
to pieces into a heap of bones, her eyes turned white. But she was 
landed safely. The camel lay under her as if dead. She stepped 
from the saddle. The crowd began to cheer. Poor Dinah at first 
did not know whether to be offended or delighted. She seized 
the arm of Ben, and looked around her. The crowd was laugh- 
ing in such a generous-hearted way that she wisely thought it best 
to join in. 

So she shook her head, bridal hat and all, and clapped her hands, 
and shouted " Giggers ! " 

Up and down the Street of Cairo ran the merriment and laughter, 
and the happiest-hearted of all were Dinah and Ben. Peal on peal of 
laughter rang out on the sunny air, Dinah leading the chorus. 

Manton Marlowe looked down the avenue of laughing, friendly, 
kindly faces, and then turned to the beaming faces of Dinah and 
Ben. 

" I never saw anything on earth so funny as that," he said. 

"No!" said Grandfather Marlowe, "and that is the funniest thing 
that you will see at the Fair." 

" I think that you are right," said Mr. Marlowe; "and there is a 



146 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

lesson too in all this light-hearted scene : people may so laugh as not 
to give offence. Look ! Dinah is the happiest of all, and there is not 
a person here that would not be glad to do her a favor! How happy 
is everything here ! The hearts of all people here beat as one." 

" This is a good world," said the old Quaker. 

A few days afterwards the trio saw a calf run away from a mock 
sacrifice. The priest ran after him, and a comical scene followed ; 
but Mr. Marlowe did not change his mind in regard to the laughing 
crowd of the Street of Cairo. That was the funniest scene that he 
saw at the Fair. 

FOLK-LORE STORY. 

MIRACULOUS SUSAN OF QUAKER HILL. 

Imprimis, the reader will ask why the woman in our title with the simple 
name of Susan was called " miraculous," and, secuudiis, where is Quaker Hill. 
I will answer the last question first, and try to give the reader a view of the 
picturesque elevation where George Fox preached in the glorious old Rhode 
Island of Governor Coddington and of Roger Williams ; and as for that said 
useful woman, who was indispensable to the old families of the once Indian 
country of Pokonoket in the trying days of dipping candles, picking live 
geese, and at " killing-time," our story will seek .to portray the one marvellous 
and mysterious event of her otherwise uneventful life. 

I should say that the quaint, plain Quaker meeting-house on the historic 
elevation near Portsmouth, R. I., is the most interesting church in all America. 
It stands for the old Rhode Island principle of soul-liberty, as set forth in 
Roger Williams's day — and what could stand for more ? It is now very much 
what it was two hundred years ago, when a rich Rhode Islander proposed 
to offer George Fox a salary to remain on the Island as preacher, — which 
caused the good man to flee. 

They do not do so now, to be sure, but times have a little changed, even 
among the hillside farmers on the Garden Island of the New World. 

I recently attended a Friends' meeting at the quaint, roomy church on 
Quaker Hill. The Narragansett Bay rolled in the distance as clear and blue 
as when George Fox himself must have beheld it in 1671, or more than two 
hundred years ago. The Hill is still the Mecca of the Societies of Friends, 
and may be found on the Old Colony Railroad near Portsmouth, R. I., some 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 1 49 

eight miles from Newport, and a few miles from the Barton- Prescott house, of 
historic fame. 

The island was Aquidneck when George Fox came there, " a voice crying 
in the wilderness of the world," and when Bishop Berkeley became prophetic 
at Newport, and voiced his inspiration in the immortal line, " Westward the 
course of empire takes its way." 

There are few spots on the earth more serene and lovely than Quaker Hill. 
There is an ethereal beauty over the blue waterways and bountiful farms, a 
" Gulf Stream influence " it is called, that seems almost spiritual, and we do not 
wonder that the good old Quaker spirit should have found its sympathetic 
atmosphere here. After the long past, the Gospel of the Inner Light and 
universal Love is still preached on the self-same serene hill of Portsmouth 
looking over to Mount Hope, — the ancient burying-ground of the Indian race, 
— the Narragansett Bay, and the sinking sails of the far sea. It is worth a 
pilgrimage to spend a Sabbath on Quaker Hill. 

The old-time Newport Quakers did not keep holidays, but Thanksgiving 
was always a benevolent day on the thrifty Quaker farms around the trans- 
figured hill. The mention of the day recalls tables of luxuries that, unhappily, 
are no more seen. Those were the days of apple dumplings made of Rhode 
Island greenings, which Rhode Island mythology claims to have come from 
the original Garden of Eden ; of pandowdy in comparison with which the 
modern apple pie merits little commendation ; of No Cake, rightly named, 
for it consisted of parched corn so deftly cooked that it floated white on milk ; 
of plum porridge, hot and cold; of hasty puddings with toothsome sauces; 
of bannocks; of whit-pot; of all kinds of game, — wild geese, teal, partridges, 
and quail; of pound-cake that induced pipes and fireside slumbers and dreams 
such as never haunted the self-denying soul of George Fox. The old Quakers 
of Portsmouth were good livers, but they shared all they had with every one. 

Blessed are the graves with their mossy stones around the queer church on 
old Quaker Hill ! The precisianers here lived quiet lives, but their principles 
of soul-liberty emancipated the world. The little square panes in the gray 
meeting-house windows, to a student of life, are more than all the rose hues 
of the lights of Cologne Cathedral. It is the soul of things that is great, — and 
great souls held their visions here. 

I vividly recall the whortleberry and blackberry pastures of Portsmouth, 
where "Miraculous Susan" used to spend the greater part of her time in July 
and August, gathering berries for the Newport market. I can see the old 
woman now as she used to pass with her baskets and tin pails, and her bottle of 
cold coffee for lunch. 



150 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

I used sometimes to go with her, and when she had rilled her baskets with 
berries she would help me fill mine. " It is what we do for other folks that 
makes life pleasant," she often said. 

The children used to start back with awe into the roadside alders and witch- 
hazels as they saw her, and one of the school-group would be likely to say: 

"That's her, — the 'ooman over whose head the miracle-ring appeared, 
right in the church, hanging in the air on nothing. And some said it was 
made of silver, and some said it was made of gold, and some of pearls. But 
they found her out. She did n't mean it. I '11 tell you what it was — won't you 
never, never tell ? " 

The mystery of the simple history of Susan had been so often told in con- 
fidence that when one put one's finger on one's lip in speaking of it, it was a 
sign ; there are some things that it is reverent not to tell publicly, — this was 
one of them. 

There was a poem of some unknown author that she used to repeat to me 
when whortleberrying, which to my simple mind surpassed in lyric beauty any- 
thing that Wordsworth ever wrote. It began : 

"Why, Phoebe, have you come so soon? 
Where are your berries, child ? " 

The unfortunate Phoebe was to my eyes a never-failing source of tears. The 
earthquake of Lisbon never affected me like that. 

I shall never forget the tempests that sometimes followed the long August 
days when we went whortleberrying. If we had an uneventful tour, we yet had 
eventful skies. The hot forenoon ; the ospreys wheeling in the fiery meridian 
heaven; the fevered air; the pearl-white clouds that rose in the north like 
mountains, peak rising above peak as in the Alps or Andes; the universal 
singing of birds in joyous expectation of showers ; the hurrying hay-wagons ; 
the rapid motions of the rakes and forks; the scent of new-mown hay; the 
carrying of water to the haymakers by the farmers' wives and daughters; the 
shadow of the cloud ; the half-sun and half-shadow on the fields; the mutter- 
ing of the thunder ; the few terrific peals ; the thunderbolt that smote some 
tall tree in the near woodland pasture ; the deluge of rain ; the dripping leaves ; 
the breaking cloud; the rainbow; the broken sunset; the singing of birds 
again ; the flying of night-hawks, and the cool, starry night that followed, — I 
can still see that country dog-day, as such a day was called. I still can feel in 
my imagination as I felt in the changing air from a fevered heat to refreshing 
cool, as we sheltered ourselves under the thick savin-trees, waiting for the 
shower to pass. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 1 53 

Miraculous Susan, over whose head the silver ring appeared in the old 
Orthodox church on the Heights, lived in a small cottage near Quaker Hill. 
Across a narrow waterway was Tiverton Heights. The water is spanned by a 
stone bridge now; it was a ferry in Susan's day. 

A strange event had happened to Susan. We never knew of her telling the 
story but once, and that was at a husking at Tiverton, after her feelings had been 
a little touched by certain jokes about her that had fallen upon her ears at a 
husking-party. 

"No," she said, shaking her calash, " I fear sometimes that there's no 
miracle ever happened in my poor life — I can't say; but I 've had a hard time. 
I never encouraged any man to marry me — how could I ? only Malachi, he 
just took hold of one end of my apron-string one evening, and opened his 
mouth, and I said ' Stop ! ' and looked at him just like that. Malachi was a 
likely man, but I would n't be a burden to him. The doctor said that Mother 
would be a cripple for life, and he had no sooner said that than my mind was 
made right up. I knew my duty. If a thing is right, it is right, and there need 
be nothing more said about it; and if a thing is wrong, it is wrong, and there 
need be nothing more said about that. I 've had some blessin's and a pretty 
even life, take it all in all, — only that miracle that happened to me in church, 
and nobody was to blame for that! I did think that the 'angel of the Lord 
had come down,' as the choir used to sing, but I fear I was mistaken." 

Miraculous Susan arose and bent over the corn-heap and pulled down a 
large husking of corn. It was a bright, clear, still November day, with a woody 
odor in the air that came from the falling leaves of the flaming maples and 
walnut-trees where the river made an ox-bow. There had been a gusty storm 
the night before, leaving leaf-wet woods. The crows were cawing in the far 
tree-tops, and the pilfering jays were swinging in the wild grape-vines. Hither 
and thither a nimble squirrel, called the " chipmunk," might have been seen 
running along the gray stone walls. 

The Parson sat next to Miraculous Susan by the husk-heap. 

" You never gave Malachi any yarn to wind? " said he, good-naturedly, to 
lead up to the neighborhood story. 

" No, I never encouraged him as much as that. I only treated him so well 
that he came a second time. La, Parson, if I 'd only said the word I need n't 
ha' been huskin' here for one bushel in ten. But my folks, they were all ought- 
to-be people, and I had to be just what I ought to be. It was born in me. I 
know that I got spiritually proud, and actually thought that the Lord had 
appeared to me and set a halo of glory around my head. Think of it, a poor 



154 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

lone woman like me ! But the world has been good to me, and it will be a 
great deal better on the day that I go out of it than it was on the day when I 
came into it, and none the worse for my being in it — don't you think so, 
Parson? " 

"Yes, Sister Susan, that is just my own opinion." 

" I can make mince pies equal to Dorothy Hancock's, though I can't pull 
a string as that woman did on the French fleet one day, and have a whole 
frigate go bang, banging around me. There 's a difference between some folks 
and others." 

" You are right, Susan, — you can make mince pies." 

" And pandowdy! 

" Yes, I never ate any Thanksgiving pandowdy equal to yours." 

" That's because I let the crust candy, and then breaks it all up, and kneads 
it into the apple. — This is a beautiful world ! " 

It surely was on that day and in that thrifty meadow. The sky was as blue 
as in April. The hills in their late autumn hues shimmered afar like dream- 
lands. The long meadows were restful and bright with cool green aftermath. 
Between the hills ran the way down to the cranberry meadows, the salt marshes, 
and the purple sea. 

The farm lay upon a stretch of land now known as Tiverton Heights, which 
was already famous in Indian history, but is now also associated with stirring 
events of the Revolutionary War. There is no place in America that com- 
mands more romantic scenes and waterways. At a distance lay the town- of 
Little Compton, the residence of Captain Benjamin- Church the Indian-fighter, 
and the rich hunting-grounds of the Awasonks. In the lowlands at the sea- 
levels was the island of Rhode Island, where had lived Bishop Berkeley, of pro- 
phetic memory. In the town now called Middleton, near Newport, the Aquidians 
had met their fate ; and the same town now is famous as the place where Barton 
captured General Prescott : — 

" 'Twas on that dark and stormy night, 
The winds and waves did roar, 
Bold Barton then with twenty men 
Went down upon the shore." 

The old inhabitants still love to tell how Tuck Sisson on that memorable July 
night broke open the British General's door by butting against it with his head. 
To the west, where now the great stone bridge, costing a quarter of a million, 
connects the island of Newport the Beautiful with the mainland, was the 
pleasant ferry. And beyond lay the Narragansett, one of the beautiful inland 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 157 

seas of the world. Here also were the Highlands of the Pocassetts, and thence 
Queen Wetamoe and her warriors used to cross Mount Hope Bay to unite in 
the war-dances of King Philip at night. To-day every town on the Heights 
has its wonderful tales and romantic legends. 

The " husk-heap," as the unharvested corn was called, was many hundred 
feet long, and covered on the top with thatch and swale meadow-hay. Behind 
it rose a number of " husk-stacks," as the heaped husked cornstalks were 
termed, while in front were two huge ox-carts, with high sides, which were 
brimming with yellow Indian corn. Over the corn-heaps where the husking 
had already been done was a long row of pumpkins, " pig corn" and " smutty 
corn," on the ground. The crickets were singing cheerily everywhere, as they 
always did on bright days about the corn-heaps. 

The huskers were a merry company. In the middle of the long row of 
these busy people sat Deacon White, the owner of the seashore farm, and next 
to him Sally Bannocks, his widowed sister. At his other side sat Parson 
Brown, who had come over from the parsonage under the great elbowing elm- 
trees to " lend a hand ; " and beside the good Parson sat Miraculous Susan, 
the woman-of-all-work of the town. An old Indian woman, named Maria, took 
a place apart from the others at the end of the heap. Miraculous Susan and 
Indian Maria husked for the Deacon on shares, receiving one bushel in ten of 
the corn that they basketed for their labor. A dozen or more boys and girls 
made up a happy party, such as could have been seen in November a hundred 
years ago on almost any large New England farm. 

In these merry days of plenty the young people had a droll song that they 
used to sing. It was evidently written in derision of the unthrifty farmer, who 
had no such bounteous corn-heaps as these. It was sung in doleful minor, 
and the refrain words "Over there" had the most melancholy cadence of 
anything that I ever heard except the hymn-tune " Windham." It ran as 
follows : — 

O potatoes they grow small, 
Over there. 

O potatoes they grow small, 

For they plants 'em in the fall, 

And they eats 'em skins and all, 
Over there ! 

O they had a clam pie, 

Over there. 
O they had a clam pie, 

Over there. 



158 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

O they had a clam pie, 
And its crust was made of rye, 
You must eat it or must die, 
Over there ! 

The fiddling tune of " Old Rosin the Beau," and the lively strains of 
"Money Musk," the "Virginia Reel," and "Fisher's Hornpipe," were often 
heard at the husking-parties, played by the village fiddlers, of whom every 
town had one. For more serious music, the huskers sang the old plaintive 
Scotch airs. 

Miraculous Susan ? She was the servant of everybody in distress ; the 
good woman of the town. She heard the first wail of the infant, and stood 
last by the trembling widow when the sod fell hollow upon the coffin. Did a 
child have a bad case of measles or throat-ail, she was there ; was there a case 
of typhus fever, her faithful hand fanned that brow. She did not shrink even 
from a case of smallpox. Did a farm-wife fall sick in haying-time, thither 
went Miraculous Susan. Did a woman with a great family of children need 
special help on washing-day, baking-day, or at " killing-time," there she was 
found. She used to say that the Lord created her " fists full of days' work for 
everybody," and that that was her mission in life; and always added the reflec- 
tion of doubtful comfort, " And I shall get through by and by." 

Her name — " Miraculous Susan " — how did she come by that ? 

Therein is our story, as we have intimated. Other people told it many 
times; it was a wonder-tale of the old farms. I never knew her to tell the 
story but once, and that was on this particular day, at the corn-heap. 

" Parson Brown," said she, pulling down a large armful of cornstalks and 
corn, " do you really think that there are such persons as ghost-seers, or that 
all such things are only just like the 'House that Jack built,' just one thing 
leadin' into another ? " 

" Susan," said the good Parson, " I have n't believed much in those things 
since what happened to you, according to Elder Almy's view of the matter. 
Don't be offended, Susan. There are mostly mysterious causes for mysterious 
things. You are an honest woman, Susan, and it is much good that you have 
done in the world. As for that miracle, Susan, that was a very peculiar case. 
It 's husking-time, and we are all your friends ; just tell us your side of that 
story which makes the people — the Lord forgive 'em! — all call you Miracu- 
lous Susan." 

Susan drew her Rob-Roy shawl around her, and gave the Parson the same 
kind of a look that she had given Malachi when he just took hold of her apron- 




■-■-■' • ■■ 



WrelfflPrJAf* 



ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. l6l 

string to get courage to ask the question. Then her face relaxed, and there 
came into it a kindly look, and she said, "Parson Brown, I will. You have all 
been proper good to me, and have always meant well, if you do say ' Ichabod ' 
to me now ; you mean well." 

Susan pulled down a large heap of corn to husk while telling her story, and 
shook out of it the dry corn-cockles, saying, " First the blade, and then the ear, 
and then the full corn in the ear," and adding, " Every cornstalk is a Thanks- 
giving sermon." The children drew near to hear, and with them one girl, 
Susanna, whose eyes grew with the story. 

" Tell all you know," said Deacon White ; " and it is mighty interesting to 
hear a person tell a little more than he knows. I always like people that can 
see just a little beyond the horizon — what is the imagination for? " 

" I shall tell you only the plain truth," said Susan. " So let me begin with 
the planting-time, when the bluebirds came with the sky on their wings, and 
the children dropped the first corn into the ground. I was dreadful poor that 
year. Mother had just died and left me alone and lonesome, and I began then 
to be hands and feet for everybody, so as to heal up the great lump in my 
heart. I had a Rob-Roy shawl that I had worn for years to church, summer 
and winter, and one June day, as I was coming down the steps of the church, 
Deacon White here, says he, says he to me, ' Susan, you ought to have some 
better things to wear; and if we have a prosperous year, and my ship comes 
in prosperous-like, I mean to get the folks together in the fall, and to have 
them make you a present of a real camlet cloak.' 

" Could I believe my ears ? It was only grand folks that wore camlet 
cloaks ! The wives of people who traded at sea ! 

" I attended church at Quaker Hill for the most part, because, to tell the 
truth, I had to dress plain, and my simple clothes did not make me look so 
poor among the gray Quaker folk as they did among the silk gowns and cam- 
let cloaks at Tiverton. And then, at the hands-shaking after the Quaker meet- 
ings, I used often to find something in my hands besides emptiness, and I 
always felt friendly to the Quaker folk who were led by the Spirit, and who 
believed their words were Spirit when they preached and exhorted. They are 
good people, and I wish that the world were full of such, which I say though I 
am Orthodox. 

" Well, I looked at the Deacon. His first wife had a camlet cloak, brought 
over from the East Indies or some foreign parts where the camels grow. 

" But what the Deacon said did touch my heart in a tender place. He was 
the first person in all the community that had ever seemed to think that I 
would like to be thought of. My lip trembled, and I pulled down, my calash 



1 62 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

to hide my weakness, because my eyelids began to twitch, and I could n't help 
it. I walked down the steps firmly, and then I took the wood-path home, and 
sat down on the pine-needles all alone on the way and had a good cry. I 
did n't know that I had any such feelings before. It was n't the thought of a 
camlet cloak that made me break up so, — it was that the Deacon had seen that 
I had had a hard time, and felt for me. 

" Well, the corn came up, and the blades waved in the long fields in the 
June air, and the robins sang everywhere. I was spry that summer, and every- 
where I went there arose before me a vision of that camlet cloak. Not that I 
wanted such a cloak, but I wanted the people to have some regard for me, and 
what the Deacon said stood for that. Everybody likes to be thought some- 
thing of sometime. 

" The blades of corn turned at last into silk and tassels, and then it was 
September, and every kernel that had been planted under the April skies had 
produced an ear, and some two. The green fields turned yellow and rustled, 
and the crickets piped and the birds sang their last song and flew away. Then 
came Indian summer, and the Thanksgiving days were near at hand. It had 
been a prosperous year, and the Deacon's ship had come in with its gun 
booming. 

" One day the stage came lumbering up the Heights, and the driver drew 
up the reins before my door, and looked under the great leather boot where 
the mail-bags were, and brought out a large box, and called, — 

" ' Susan, here — I 've got something for ye, from Newport.' 

"'That's passing strange,' said I, throwing my apron over my head. 'I 
have n't any near of kin in Newport.' 

" ' Friends,' said he. 

"'Friends?' said I. 'I haven't many of them anywhere, as for that 
matter ; they 're as scarce as hen's teeth in this world where there 's so much 
selfishness. But I hadn't ought to complain; we all of us get treated better 
than we deserve. The Lord forgive me for saying such things as those ! This 
is a good world.' 

" He handed down a package. 

" ' Guess it came from foreign parts,' said he. ' Do the best you can, 
Susan, so that when this bothersome life is all over you will — you will — Go 
lang; ' and he was out of sight in quick time, the wheels rattling over the 
stony hill. 

" I took the package into the house, and opened it, all alone. Could I 
believe my eyes? It was a camlet cloak, all made of silk and camel's hair, 
and grand enough to have bedecked a queen, and large enough to cover my 
whole body. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 163 

" I first thought that I would just sink right down on my knees and pray. 
Then my vanity got the better of me, and I held up the cloak before the 
looking-glass; my cap-border rose when I thought how fine I would look 
o-oing up the steps of the old church with that garment covering me, like a 
picture of Queen Vashti in the Bible. 

" While I was standing there, grand as a drum-major at a general training, 
who should come in but old Elder Almy, of Portsmouth Farms. 

"'What has thee got there, Susan?' said he, looking up queerly from 
under the broad brim of his hat. 

" ' A royal garment fit for a queen,' said I. ' Look there, Elder Almy — a 
camlet cloak ! ' 

"'I see, I see,' said he. 'I heard that the Tiverton folks were about to 
make thee a present,' said he, ' and I hoped it would be such an one as would 
make thy heart better. It is only the present that makes the heart better that 
the Lord desires thee to have, Sister Susan.' 

"' Elder Almy,' said I, ' I am a plain-spoken woman, and I am going to 
ask you one question, if you are a Quaker. Why should not a poor woman 
like me have a camlet cloak? ' 

" ' Thee shouldst, if it would make thee better, Susan. What hast thou to 
go with' thy camlet cloak? Look at thy shoes, Susan. How is thy meal-chest, 
Susan? How wouldst thee look in thy green calash and thy camlet cloak, 
Susan? " 

" ' But I 'm goin' to get a whole lot of new things to wear with my camlet 
cloak,' said I. 

" ' How about thy purse, Susan? Hast thou means to live after the pattern 
of thy royal garment? And would it be good for thy heart if thou hadst? 
Simple living is a duty, Susan. I dress as simply as my work-folks, Susan. 
If I did otherwise, I would encourage extravagance in them. Thy camlet 
cloak begetteth pride, Susan, and pride resisteth the Spirit, Susan. It is better 
for thee, Susan, far better, to be poor in spirit.' 

" Then I up and fell from grace, the Lord forgive me ! 

'"Elder Almy,' said I, I am just as good as any of the people that wear 
camlet cloaks. There was no different blood in the veins of Queen Anne than 
that in my own. Small people make small presents. The Governor has sent 
forth his proclamation for all people to assemble in the churches on the 
20th day of the nth month, and I am going to assemble.' 

" ' All of you, Susan? ' 

" ' Yes, alloi me, and the camlet cloak. It does n't make one feel happy to 
be given pewter spoons. There ! ' 



1 64 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" 'Nor a gold crown, Susan? ' 

" I was sorry afterwards that I said these things, for Elder Almy and all 
the Quakers were the most feeling and generous people, and as for Mrs. Almy, 
why, she would have given away her bonnet off her own head. 

" I had some money that I had hidden away in an old Spanish money-jar, 
against sickness. I resolved to take that and go to Newport and buy me 
some silk for a hood, an alpaca dress, and a string of beads, which Elder Almy 
would have classed among the vanities. I went to Newport, and I found there 
that I needed so many things to go with the camlet cloak that I spent all the 
money that I had. ' The Lord who sent the camlet cloak will provide,' said I. 

" I shall never forget that bright Thanksgiving morning that I was to set 
out from Quaker Hill, and for Tiverton, in my silk hood and camlet cloak. It 
was a cold morning, but clear. I could hear the surf roaring at Newport, and 
the bells ringing. 

" As I was getting ready to go, I chanced to open the old saddle-room 
door, and what should I see there but the very foot-stove that my mother used 
to carry to church, before they had one stove for all the people. A thought 
struck me. My pew was in a cold part of the church; I would fill the iron 
cup inside of the foot-stove with coals, and take the stove along with me under 
my camlet cloak. No one would ever see it, and it would keep me comfortable 
all the day. 

" My mother was better off than I, and her foot-stove was not one of the 
ordinary kind. It was made of block tin, was perforated in stars, had a mahog- 
any frame, and a brass pan for the coals. It was always a mystery to me how 
coals in that little hand-stove would hold fire for so long a time. She used to 
use hard-wood coal, and mostly walnut. I had some good coals of apple-tree 
wood in the stove that morning, and I put them into the pan, and closed the 
stove door, and took the stove in my left hand under my cloak like a basket 
of eggs. Nobody ever carries a foot-stove now, though there can be found 
one still in the saddle-rooms and eaves-holes of nearly all the old houses, along 
with the brass warming-pans, candle-moulds, and shovels and tongs and fenders. 

" How bright the water looked at the ferry ! How the old ferryman stared 
when he saw me ! How an old crow on a dead tree peered down at me and 
cried out in the keen air, ' Haw, haw, haw ! ' 

" I met Elder Almy on the way. 

" ' Goin' to Thanksgiving? ' said he. 

" ' How do I look now, Elder? ' said I. 

" ' Just like a rag-bag, — a travelling vanity on the road to Vanity Fair. 
You'll get there, Susan. Did you hear that crow? What was he talking 
about, Susan? ' 





EGYPTIAN JUGGLER. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 1 67 

"' Pewter spoons, I guess,' said I. And I just gave him that look that I 
had given Malachi. 

"The churchyard was full of people, the dead and alive; for that matter, 
the dead are always there. The bell was ringing, and carriages were coming 
from all the neighboring farms. All eyes were bent upon me as I passed 
through the crowd and went up the church steps. I took my seat in the back 
pew where I usually sat, and put my feet on the warm foot-stove and spread 
over it the camlet cloak like a tent, and looked up to the tall pulpit, the red 
curtains, and sounding-board, and hour-glass. 

" Elder Holmes alluded to me in the opening prayer, as one whom ' celestial 
charity delighted to honor.' After the prayer I looked up again and around, 
and I saw that all the eyes in the church were turned towards me. 

" ' The Lord keep me humble ! ' prayed I. 

" That prayer was answered. Surely it was. 

" The text was a curious one — ' Where there is no vision, the people per- 
ish.' Elder Holmes, he gave a Bible history of visions, and of the times when 
the Lord spake to Israel in visions, and the times when there were no visions, 
and then he went over history to show that when people lost their prophetic 
sense the nation declined. It was a wonderful discourse. But while he was 
giving a picture of the woful Middle Ages, when the people lost their visions 
in bloody wars, the. church suddenly grew still; you could have heard a pin 
drop. The foot-stove had made such a warmth under my cloak that I had al- 
most gone to sleep. I was glad that the Middle Ages were gone, and was think- 
ing that things in this world must be above all right now, when the stillness of 
the church awoke me. I started up and looked around wild like, and my 
heart gave a thump as I saw Elder Holmes standing in the pulpit, silent, with 
uplifted hands, — and the great silk sleeves of his robe did make his arms ap- 
pear awful. The Elder was looking straight at me. 

" I turned my head. Every eye in the gallery was fixed upon me. I looked 
towards the deacons' pew. The four deacons all set, bent forward like, staring 
straight at me. What had happened ? 

" I might well ask that. Every one seemed looking at something over my 
head. I looked up, and there, right over my head, hung a vision. The 
heavens had come down, or so thought all the people, and so thought I. 
How shall I describe it as it appeared to me? I seem to see it now. 

" Over my head hung a ring, bright as silver and pearls, and full of golden 
light. A miraculous ring ! From the ring there were floating away little silver 
rings, which I took to be wings of angels, and which melted away as they went 
up. The sunlight shone through the silver ring as I sat between the windows, 



1 68 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

and the vision seemed at times like a circle of glass filled with glimmering gold. 
I never can describe how I felt at that hour. I thought of the hymn — Heaven 
forgive my vanity ! — 

" ' The Lord descended from above, 
And bowed the heavens most high, 
And underneath his feet he cast 
The garments of the sky.' 

" I lifted up my eyes to the choir. The singers»were all looking down upon 
me as though they were just rising to sing. Even the bass-viol seemed to be 
looking. Then I dropped my eyes to the pew where the deacons' wives sat, 
and Deacon Coon's wife, she looked just as though her eyes would shoot out of 
her head, and Deacon Bradford's wife, she sat looking just like this, with a 
snuff-box in her hands — so — and her neck as long as a sea loon's flying — so. 

" It was a curious sight. I shall never forget it to the longest day of my 
life : the choir, all eyes looking down ; the deacons on one side of the high pul- 
pit, looking out of their pew; the deacons' wives on the other side of the 
pulpit, looking out of their pew, and the parson in his high curtained pulpit 
under the sounding-board, with his arms in his robe, uplifted — this way. 

" ' Signs and wonders ! ' said Parson Holmes. ' Let us gaze on in silence ! ' 
They did. The silence was awful. 

" My heart beat so violently that I felt that I must get up and go out into 
the yard. I rose slowly, and went down the aisle, where all the people were 
sitting like statues. As soon as I got up, there was a great uplifting of what 
seemed to be pearly angels' wings around my head — little silvery wings — and 
then the vision vanished. 

" I never felt so proud in all my life as when I went back to Quaker Hill 
that day, a camlet cloak on my back, and a vision of angels, for aught I could 
say, hovering over my new silk hood. I imagined I was one of the old patri- 
archs. What would Quaker Almy say now ? Wa' n't I as good as anybody? 

" The news of what had happened spread everywhere. In a day or two 
Deacon Almy came to see me. 

"'Signs and wonders! ' said I. 

" ' Pins and needles ! ' said he. ' The Lord don't appear in visions to 
people in camlet cloaks, that talk sassy when reproved. I have a theory about 
that vision. We are commanded to try the spirit, Susan,' said he, looking at 
me with a searching eye. ' What didst thee carry that day with thee under thy 
camlet cloak? ' 

" ' Nothing but my mother's foot-stove,' said I. 



THE FUNNIEST THING AT THE FAIR. 1 69 

" ' Did it smoke? ' said he. 

" ' A little bit,' said I. 

" ' And where did the smoke go to ? ' asked he. 

" ' I smothered it under my camlet cloak,' said I. ' A little of it might have 
gone out between my shoulders,' said I, after stopping to think. ' I sat bent 
over, and I could n't see my back. How could I?' The word ' smoke ' made 
me feel very uncertain. 

" ' And a light smoke always forms a circle before it ascends, and in a ray 
of sunlight the circle would look like gold,' said he, 'and then it would all break 
apart feathery like,' said he, ' and ' — I could n't endure any more. 

" I arose and seized the broom. 

" 'You unbelieving Philistine !' said I. 

" ' You may spare that carnal weapon,' said he. ' Susan, you are a good 
woman in the main, but you have n't the kind of spirit that sees visions. I 'm 
sorry for ye.' 

"Well, would you believe it? I began to doubt the vision myself, and 
Elder Almy, he gave out his suspicions among the people, and some thought 
one thing and some another. 

" But right after Thanksgiving there came an awful snowstorm, and though 
I had a silk hood and a camlet cloak, I had n't no meal, nor hardly anything to 
eat or burn. Then Eider Almy and some of the brethren came over from the 
Quaker Hill farms, and brought me two cords of wood, and some bags of 
meal, and a quarter of beef, and a whole sage cheese, and some stout flannel, 
and Sister Almy, she put five pistareens in my hand, and gave me a braided 
husk mat and a quilted bed-coverlet, and they all talked to me about the Inner 
Light, and humility, and loving others better than self, and then they held a 
meeting in my kitchen as still as the wings of death ; and when they were gone 
I hung up my camlet cloak in the cupboard for good and all, and resolved to 
love henceforth and forever just such poor creatures as myself, and to serve 'em 
as best I could ; and I never felt so thankful in all my life. Deacon White 
here, he and the church all meant well, but, as Elder Almy says, ' Always make 
presents that will do people good.' Good presents, of course, make people 
feel better than poor ones, — but beautiful things may be serviceable, too. 

" This is a good world, Deacon, and I will always love you for the camlet 
cloak; but then, you know, Deacon, and you know, Elder, that — There, the 
horn is blowing for dinner, and I 've husked this morning five baskets of corn." 

" Was it a miracle, Susan? " asked one of the huskers, — the girl with large 
eyes. 



I7 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Well, some say it was, like Elder Holmes, and some, like Elder Almy, say 
it was only smoke; I can't be sure. It seems to me like the battle of Sheriff 
Muir, that my old grandfather, who was a Scotchman, used to tell about: 

" ' Some say that they ran, 
Some say that we ran, 
And some say that nane ran 
At a', man. 

"■ ' But of one thing I 'm sure, 

A battle there was at Sheriff Muir, 
Which I saw, man, 
And we ran, and they ran, 
And they ran, and we ran, 
Awa', man.' " 

Susan, like ordinary mortals, obeyed the lively dinner-horn, followed by the 
merry Rhode Islanders. 

The Miracle? It is a mystery still. Susan is dead, and the flat gray wall- 
stone that marked her grave is sinking, moss-covered, into the grass where the 
sparrows nest, among the many graves that lie on the sunset slope of Quaker 
Hill. 







FISHERIES BUILDING. 



CHAPTER VIII. 




THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. 

T was July 4th, 1893. The lake breezes in the early 
morning floated over the White City. Flags filled 
the air ; eight hundred acres of flags ? Yes, more : 
in fact, Chicago was a sky of flags; and so was the 
State of Illinois. 

Hundreds of thousands of people were pouring, 
like a multitude of tides, toward the scene of enchantment. The 
avenues of the Exposition were thronged early in the day, and the 
crowds grew. The Lake was here white with craft and there shadowed 
with steamers. There was music everywhere. 

The flags of all nations mingled ; the national airs of all nations 
mingled ; people of all nations mingled. The White City was the 
festival of the World. 



172 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. 



Guns boomed, the wonder grew, and high noon was a scene of 
glory. 

Our trio were early on the grounds. 

" What is wanting here ? " asked Mr. Marlowe, as they stood in 
front of the Administration Building, and looked down the Court of 
Honor toward the Peristyle and Lake. 

" Only a White-Bordered Flag," said Grandfather Marlowe, looking 
up to the allegorical figures of the elements controlled and uncon- 
trolled, — "only a Peace Flag to lead the future, and stand for the 
brotherhood of all mankind." 



THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. I 73 

While he was speaking, from his Quaker view, as it were, out of the 
Inner Light, there was a gathering of people, and it was led by a 
woman, with a new flag. It presently shot into the air and unrolled, 
amid the allegories of the uncontrolled and the controlled world. Its 
border was white. It was hailed with cheering. 

The old Quaker looked up, and saw it. It was like a vision to 
him. He had dreamed of it through all his life : the fact had been 
within prophetic sight, but he had never expected it in a vision so 
glorious. 

Could it be true? The flags of all nations filling the air, the sea, 
the prairie; hundreds of thousands of bright, happy faces passing, 
their eyes filled with scenes of marvellous beauty, and their ears with 
the patriotic musical inspirations of struggles for liberty and progress 
for the ages ; and with the crown of the great throne of the Adminis- 
tration Building, the White-Bordered Flag of Peace, floating in the 
shining sky, radiant, glorious — could it be true ! 

"Manton," said the old Quaker, "that is the grandest sight that 
you will see at the Fair; you need look no further. That is the 
grandest sight that has appeared since angels sang over the Plains of 
Bethlehem. I can go home now content, and die in peace. The 
world is destined to follow that flag ! " 

" I expect to see no grander sight than that," said Mr. Marlowe. 
" I have almost made up my mind that the sympathetic, good-humored 
laughter in the Street of Cairo is the funniest thing we have seen ; 
the Philadelphia Working-Man's house, the most useful thing; and I 
am sure that the White-Bordered Flag in the Court of Honor on 
this Independence Day, will be the prophetic glory of the Fair. I 
have now to study the most noble lesson of the Fair." 

The reader may like to know something of the history of the 
inspired, unselfish, and most earnest woman, Mary Frost Ormsby, 
whose influence caused the White-Bordered Flag to be raised over 
the Court of Honor on this thrilling day. 



174 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

That patriotic magazine " Home and Country" for February, 1893, 
has an article from Mrs. Ormsby's pen, in which that lady gives an 
account of how she carried the White Flag to Rome. We quote a 
part of the article : — 

PEACE CONGRESSES AND THE PEACE FLAG. 

As an accredited delegate of the Universal Peace Union, founded by the 
Quakers, or Friends, twenty-six years ago, also as a substitute for the Rev. 
Edward Everett Hale, D.D., of Boston, Massachusetts, and Mr. William O. 
McDowell, of Newark, New Jersey, in representing the Pan-Republic Congress 
and Woman's Freedom League, it was my good fortune to carry the flag of 
peace to Rome. 

It was not until the day of my departure I learned that alone and unattended 
I was to cross the ocean and the Continent with this treble duty intrusted to me. 
With the New Orleans matter then unsettled, and the diplomatic relations, 
between Italy and America inharmonious because of what to the Italian people 
seemed an utter indifference on the part of our government officials in regard to 
the massacre of Italian subjects, it was no easy task to present the flag of our 
country to a peace congress at Rome. But the influences that emanated from 
friendly discussions at this gathering, the fact that many of its members were 
also members of the Italian parliament, and the influence exerted by letters, 
sent to the American press, — all were, in my estimation, most efficient aids in 
speedily and amicably adjusting the much-deplored New Orleans tragedy. The 
starry flag was never so precious to me as when it was consigned to my care until 
it should grace our congress in Rome. 

This particular flag was made by American women from American silk 
wrought by the Woman's Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia. 

Pennsylvania women arranged it: ever from its earliest history this State 
has proved the power of justice to obtain peace. 

After a perilous journey, having encountered a storm at sea, and having 
been compelled to ride alone all night in a closed compartment while crossing 
the Continent, I reached the Eternal City on the morning that congress was to 
convene. 

Here at Italy's capital had gathered a corps of philosophers, scientists, artists, 
statesmen, authors, and journalists, to advance the cause of peace and prevent 
bloodshed. They came from different points of the compass, from every form 
of government, with a variety of aspirations, judgments, and tastes, but with, 
one common purpose. 



THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. 177 

This remarkable assemblage of three hundred delegates, representing eighty- 
eight different peace societies, and speaking seventeen different languages, had 
gathered on the historic spot from which went forth the edict that " All the 
world should be taxed." In full view of the ruins of the Forum and the hill of 
the Caesars we proceeded to discuss the one common sentiment, — " Peace on 
earth, and good will to men." 

Flags of every nation decked the capitol. Music from the municipal band 
stationed near the Aurelian statue stirred every heart with its inspiring strains. 
It was on this spot that Antony and Pompey once swayed the people and 
urged them to fresh carnage and conquests. Now we came to pray that the 
temple of Janus would forever be closed, and war reign no more. 

Up the splendid stairway and over the beautiful serpentine road guarded 
by gendarmes, in company with Rev. Dr. Sturgis and Miss Rutter, of England, 
I carried the American flag, — the Flag of Peace. The formal presentation was 
made on the succeeding day, accompanied by an appropriate speech, which 
was enthusiastically applauded, especially by the Italians, although the New 
Orleans tragedy was then fresh in their minds. 

Briefly relating the Columbus incident in the discovery of America, I stated 
that in behalf of my sister countrywomen I had come to his native shores to 
unfurl under Italian skies the Stars and Stripes, our " Banner of Liberty " and 
" Flag of Peace." I had also to thank Columbus' countrymen for all that his 
discovery had accomplished for those of my own sex. In America, as nowhere 
else, women have attained intellectual and moral advancement, independence 
of support, and peaceful happy homes. 

I said, " Under this flag dwell sixty-five millions of people whose interests, 
in common with those of all nations, are to be promoted by the universal settle- 
ment, through arbitration, of all international difficulties." 

At this juncture a gendarme handed me the flag, which I unfurled and 
presented to the president as a contribution from America's daughters. It was 
greeted with most enthusiastic applause, lifted gracefully to a niche at the 
right of the president, and placed in the arms of the gladiator Steigile. Its 
silken folds fell over the cleft arm of the statue, partially concealing the figure 
representative of cruelty and death. 

Pointing to the Stars and Stripes I suggested that its tricolor made it a 
fitting emblem of the third assembling of our Peace Congress. 

Standing on the dome of our capitol in Washington the Goddess of Liberty 
holds the scales of Justice, and standing upon an island in New York harbor 
she bears aloft the symbolic torch that enlightens the world. Women of 

12 



178 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

America are forming associations of all kinds whereby they can benefit 
humanity. 

" We are not unmindful of the fact that the discovery of America by 
Columbus was accomplished through the self-sacrifice of a woman, — Queen 
Isabella, — who pawned her jewels to defray the expense of the expedition. 
Ought not America then to be, as it is, the favored land for women? And 
woman continues her good works. 

" From the prison to the paupers' home, from the health-saving to the soul- 
saving house, you will find armies of women, not clothed for war, but in the 
garments of charity, chanting and living the song, ' Glory be to God on high, 
and on earth peace, good will to men.' " 

The same flag was carried to Bern last summer by the Italian delegation. 

Germany was represented in our third congress by delegates from five 
societies, England from sixteen, France from five, Italy from seventy-one, 
Servia and Switzerland each from two; while Austria, Belgium, Denmark, 
Spain, Hungary, Norway, Holland, Roumania, and Sweden, each sent one 
representative. 

General Howard's brother, Rev. Rowland B., was the only delegate from 
America besides myself, who crossed the ocean for the express purpose of 
attending the congress. His journey cost him his life. He died in Rome after 
a long illness. 

Captain Siccardi, one of the bravest soldiers of Italy, who resigned from 
the army because he felt it was a fratricidal occupation, in the course of an 
able address before the Peace Congress at Rome, made the following points, 
which are worth repeating: 1st, The army costs more in the otherwise possible 
gain which it interrupts or prevents than is wasted in what it consumes; 
2d, The maintenance of the army increases taxes and duties ; 3d, The workman 
whose son is in the army, loses an income, and thus is left in debt ; 4th, The 
soldier, on his return to his deserted family, receives no indemnity; 5th, Organ- 
ized liberty and justice do not abide with the army of to-day ; 6th, What we 
expend on the army is no insurance against losses by war; 7th, By the removal 
of so many workmen from their industrial pursuits the army is one of the 
greatest enemies to civilization. 

Following this speech, resolutions regarding the disarmament of all nations, 
and the establishment of permanent international arbitration, were offered and 
accepted. 

The delegates were from the world's highest ranks of scholars and humani- 
tarians. Many distinguished officials and representatives of their respective 
governments were present. 



THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. 



181 




CONVENT OF LA RABIDA. 



We were entertained during and after the Peace Congress at Rome, by 
members of the Italian Peace Society. Its president was Signor Rugurio 
Bonghi, an ex-minister, philosopher, and author, whose masterly works on the 
conduct of national affairs have greatly interested statesmen and humanitarians 
of many lands. 



" The flag has begun a new era of the achievements of Columbus," 
said Mr. Marlowe. " It leads what in old Rome would be called a 
new Seculum. The history of this incident will live and grow. Let 
us go to La Rabida ! " 

The trio pressed through the crowds, and found their way to the 



182 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




CARAVAL SANTA MARIA. 



reproduction of the old Spanish convent, where Columbus had found 
a friend in Father Perez. Here was the original Commission of 
Columbus, and the supposed anchor of the " Santa Maria." They 
rested in the court of the convent, amid the cool air of the Lake, and 
were grateful to the genius of Mr. Ober, which had caused this most 
realistic Columbian Museum to be erected. 

Here, amid the relics of a long historic past, they talked over the 
events of the day. Sundown found them there. As the shadows of 
evening fell, all the White City thrilled with electric light, and shone 
in outlines of unimagined splendor. It was at the convent that rep- 
licas of the ships of Columbus came to be exhibited, and afterwards 
the " Viking," or the Northmen's ship. 



THE GRANDEST SCENE OF ALL. 1 83 

The hour of nine found the city, the Lake, and the air a living 
glory. The Court of Honor blazed, and the many-colored fountain 
threw its rainbows into the air. 

Then if ever the trio felt the force of the great discovery, and the 
long procession of progress that had led up to this wonderful hour! 

MORNING OF THE DISCOVERY. 

Immortal Morn, all hail, 
That saw Columbus sail 

By faith alone. 
The skies before him bowed, 
Back rolled the ocean proud, 
And every lifting cloud 

With glory shone ! 

Fair Science then was born 
On that celestial morn, 

Faith dared the sea, 
Triumphant o'er her foes, 
Then Truth immortal rose 
New Heavens to disclose 

And Earth to free ! 

Strong Freedom then came forth 
To liberate the earth 

And crown the right. 
So walked the pilot bold 
Upon the sea of gold, 
And darkness backward rolled, 

And there was light ! 

Sweep, sweep across the seas, 
Ye rolling jubilees, 

Grand chorals raise ; 
The world adoring stands, 
And with uplifted hands 
Offers from all the lands 

To God its praise ! 




TRANSPORTATION BUILDING. 



CHAPTER IX. 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 




HE New England Kitchen was a double house in 
colonial style, such as was once to be seen on the 
roads running between Boston and the coast towns. 
Across the promenade was the specimen building 
of the Co-operative Society of Philadelphia. A 
little way beyond it, the Irish village presented a 
curious contrast, and the Blarney Castle rose in the sunny air. 

In the kitchen of the typical old-time New England cottage the 
homely food of the descendants of the Pilgrims was served, — brown 
bread and baked beans, pumpkin pies, doughnuts and cheese, home- 
made relishes. The waiters were dressed in colonial costumes, 
and sometimes wore calashes. The reception-room of the house 
was furnished after the manner of the Plymouth Colony. 



FOLK-LORE TALES LN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 



135 




NEW ENGLAND KITCHEN. 



The Marlowes were made welcome here, and used to take their 
suppers in the kitchen, after becoming foot-weary. When the supper 
was over, they would linger among the New England people, who 
daily gathered here, and relate colonial wonder-tales. 

One of these tales well fitted the unique room. It was told by 
Mr. Marlowe, and we sfive it here : — 



THE OLD COACH DOG, OR, THE PHANTOM INN. 

The scene to which we introduce the reader on this Thanksgiving Eve was 
in the old Winslow house at Green Harbor, now Marshfield, Mass. No house 
in America, we may safely say, ever had so many colonial legends of Thanks- 
giving Day as this. 



1 86 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Silas," said I, one night to an old stage-driver, " tell us the story of the 
dog that said ' Silas ! ' " 

The company eagerly demanded the tale. 

It was a strange room. In one corner were bushel baskets heaped with 
corn. Uncle Silas shelled corn, as he said, " for company," on other than holi- 
day or Sunday evenings. 

Over the corn baskets were strings of dried apples, pumpkins, and red 
peppers. Near the fireplace were rennets of cheese, and under the rafters 
were candle poles. 

The fireplace revealed great fore-sticks, apple-tree wood, which made an 
especially hot fire, and was used on Thanksgiving Eves, and at special times. 

Apples in rows were toasting on the hot hearth. 

The family consisted of an old couple, named White, and their sons and 
sons' wives and children from towns near Boston, and a few invited guests. 

Uncle Silas caught up his chair and lifted it in the jumping way of the old 
colonial time to a place nearer the fire. A shutter banged, and he cast his eyes 
mysteriously toward the window. The room grew very still. 

"The clouds are scudding over the moon," he began, — and I will tell the 
tale as he told it, as nearly as I remember, — " the wind is rising — I can hear it 
in the tops of the trees. Many 's the time I have gone down in the old stage- 
coach on nights like this, and leaped from the seat and snatched the mail-bag 
from the boot, and when I said ' Silas,' there would creep out of the boot that 
old coach dog. 

" That dog was given to me by a sailor, who was about to go to sea from 
the old North River. He was a pup then. 

" I never knew a dog that seemed to think so much of his master as that 
dog did of me. His eyes were never off of me. 

" I taught him a number of tricks, such as to stand up on his hind legs and 
beg, which he did by uttering a sharp, pitiful cry. While begging one day, he 
made a sound like ' Silas.' I repeated it, and he uttered it again. 

" After that I would hold back from him his food until he had made that 
sound. ' Say Silas,' I would say, and after a time he would utter the word, or 
what sounded like it. 

" The old stage-coaches had great leather boots that covered the driver's 
legs, and in cold and stormy days could be raised so high as to protect nearly 
the whole body. Under the boot I carried the mail-bags, and such packages 
as we to-day send by express. 

" The mail-coach was sometimes robbed, when the boot was known to cover 
valuables. I carried my own money in a large wallet in a side pocket of a 
great gray coat, and money for others in the same way. 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 



I8 7 



" I drove the stage for ten years, but I was never molested or robbed ; 
and in those ten years my dog Silas always slept at my feet among the mail- 
bags. 

" While I was driving the stage there was some strange things that 




MRS. PRESTON, NEW ENGLAND KITCHEN, MIDWAY. 



happened in the old Dedham woods. Several travellers who had gone through 
those woods at night had met with strange adventures. 

" They had seen a window and a light in a lonely place a little distance 
from the way, and heard the ringing of a bell like a supper-bell. 

" Two of them had turned in toward the window, but as they attempted to 



i88 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



approach it, it seemed to draw back into the heart of the woods. After walk- 
ing toward it for a considerable distance, it seemed to them no nearer, and they 
had become alarmed, and suddenly turned and fled, believing it to be a ghost. 




NEW ENGLAND GIRLS AND THEIR CHAPERON, FROM THE NEW ENGLAND KITCHEN. 



" One traveller, who had entered the road at dusk, had never been heard of 
again. 

"After these events any one who saw the window at night took to his heels, 
and at last few persons would go through the woods after dark, except in a 
carriage or in company. 

" The Dedham woods began to bear a bad reputation, but the dark events 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 1 89 

that had happened there were assigned to ghosts, and the vanishing window 
and light were spoken of as the ' Phantom inn that travelled away.' 

"Was I ever afraid when riding alone in the old Dedham woods? I 
always speak plainly, and I must say that I sometimes was. A sort of shadow 
of a fear would come over me. 

" I never believed in ghosts or haunted houses after my early years. Yet a 
superstitious nature clings to me. It has often made me feel creepy, until I 
stopped to reason. It stands to reason that dead folks don't appear with 
leather boots on, and hats and buttons and clothes woven in looms. 

" The Dedham woods used to be a lonely place. It is mostly farms now. 
They stretched then away toward the coast. There were ho towns like Hyde 
Park then ; no Ponkapoag with villas; no costly summer homes. 

"The sunlit spaces between the trees were full of bluejays, that would 
eye the coach with outstretched necks. I can seem to see them now. 

" The Indian-pipe used to grow by the wayside, and back of it wild roses 
and green brakes and clematis, which bloomed and feathered late. The horses 
liked to slack up in summer, and walk under the cool shadows of the trees. 

" Oh, those were lonely roads in winter. The winds used to whistle like 
this — woo-00-00. Just as though they were spinning — woo-00-00. They 
seemed to catch the spirit of the sea, which was not many miles away — woo- 
00-00 ; like that. 

" People began to move away to York State. They called it up ' country' 
then. The Mohawk valley seemed as far away at that time as the prairies do 
now. 

" I had a good offer to go to Albany and take a stage-route from there to 
Buffalo. I caught the up ' country ' fever, and resolved to go. 

" I may seem weak, but one of my greatest regrets on parting was that I 
would have to leave my old friend Silas, and I might never see him again. 

"One day as I was stopping at the old Scituate inn, just before setting out 
for Albany, I met a stranger there. He called himself Searle. I shall never 
forget the eyes of that man. There seemed to be a hidden spirit, not himself, 
looking through them. They reminded me at once of the travelling window 
and light, or the Phantom inn. 

" But Silas, the dog — I never met such a mystery as when the dog's eyes 
first met those of that man. It used to be said in old New England times that 
dogs would see ghosts coming, and start up and howl, before people could see 
them. That dog seemed to see something mysterious in that man's eyes. 

" He leaped into the air when Searle appeared, and said ' Silas.' 

He then shook all over, dropped on his feet, and ran around me, whining in 



190 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

a fearful tone. What did it mean? I have thought of it an hundred times — 
what did it mean? 

" ' Goin' up country, I hear,' said Searle. 

" ' Yes, I have concluded to take the Albany route,' said I, ' There is more 
money in it.' 

" ' Goin' to take your dog here along with you? He 's a fine one.' 

" ' No,' said I ; ' I '11 have to go by the way of New York, and up the river 
to Albany, and I must leave him behind. If I were going by the way of 
Springfield I would take him along. I set a store by that dog.' 

" ' Don't want to sell him, do ye ? ' 

" There came a strange light into the man's eyes. I cannot describe it. It 
made me think of the travelling window in the woods again. 

" I hesitated. 

" ' Stranger,' said I at last, ' where do you live? ' 

" ' Oh, in a lonely place down by the Dedham ponds. They say it 's 
getting dangerous there, and I want a dog. I need one. Say, as you 're goin' 
off, what will you take for him ? ' 

" ' I don't know; I would n't sell him for anything if I did n't have to.' 

" ' I '11 give you ten dollars for him. That is high, but I 'm lonely like, and 
they say them woods are getting dangerous. What do you say? ' 

" ' You may have him.' 

"• I felt somehow that I had done an unworthy thing, — that I had sold my 
dog to an unworthy master. That dog had such a true nature that he would 
never have tricked me with any act. 

" How should I part with Silas? I felt my head ache at the thought of it 
— the dog had been so faithful. I decided I would have Searle put a rope on 
his collar, and would leave him in the evening in the office of the inn with him, 
and so steal away from him unknown. I did so, — and if ever I felt like a 
coward, it was then. 

" Five years passed, when one November day I received a letter. My old 
friends, the Whites, had remembered me, and they invited me to spend 
Thanksgiving with them at Green Harbor. 

"Wife's folks lived in the old town of Dedham, and she urged me to accept 
the invitation, as she wished to go with me to Dedham. Her folks were getting 
old — but, poor woman, they outlived her. 

"So I secured a driver to take my place for a few weeks, and we set out 
together for Boston and Dedham. One day, late in November, I left my wife 
among her folks, and set out, intending to walk over to Weymouth to see some 
friends, and there to take the stage for Marshfield. 



FOLK-LORE TALES LN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN, 



193 



" I had expected to start in the morning and make a day of it, but I was 
delayed until the afternoon. It was delightful Indian summer weather, and I 
did not mind a night walk, as I could rest in Weymouth. 

" ' Don't stop at the Phantom inn/ said my wife, as we parted. 




IRISH VILLAGE, — BLARNEY CASTLE. 



: ' I sha'n't stop at no phantom inns,' said I, ' if I expect to reach Randolph 
to-night There will no acorns sprout under my feet.' 

" ' But,' said my wife's mother, ' they do tell strange stories still about those 
woods. Are you armed ? ' 

" ' Yes, as much as I ever am.' 

" ' But you used to keep a dog.' 

" I stalked away, laughing. 

" Nightfall overtook me on the border of the old Declham woods. 

" I remember the strange mysterious feeling that came over me as I entered 

*3 



1 94 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

the shadow of the pines of that lonely road among the skeleton trees. I stopped 
and looked back. 

" As I stood listening, there came a vivid impression that somehow I was 
in the companionship of the old coach dog, as I used to be. I could feel my 
heart shrink as I recalled how meanly I had treated him, and I eased my 
conscience with the reflection that I had done as well for him, and myself, as I 
could. 

" That a dog might make his presence felt in some way by electrical force 
is possible I cannot say, but I repeat it, — I seemed to feel that the old coach 
dog was somewhere near me in these woods, and had a sense that I was there. 

" I entered the lonely way, when another strange thing began to haunt me. 
It was the eyes of Searie. I had never forgotten them. I could almost see 
them again now. Every rattle in the savin bushes seemed to bring them back 
again. 

" As I walked- along with a witch-hazel stick for a cane, a great light rose like 
a fire among the tops of the gray rocks and skeleton trees. It was a full 
hunter's moon coming up from the sea. After a time it went into a cloud, but 
the way was still clear. It was almost as still as death. 

"Occasionally a timid rabbit would cross the way; once a white rabbit 
leaped out before me, and I felt my heart beat, and thought again of the old 
coach dog, Searle's dreadful eyes, and the tales of the Phantom inn, at which 
I used to laugh when I drove the cape stage. 

" The way grew more lonely, amid the oaks and the russet leaves, savins, pines, 
and rocks. In places the road was strewn with fallen nuts, and at some points 
with rustling leaves. Once the eyes of a white owl confronted me on a 
decaying limb — I thought again of Searie. 

" I hurried on, hoping to reach Randolph before midnight, when suddenly 
I heard a sound that stopped my feet at once and sent a chill over me. It was 
a hollow tone, like the ringing of a supper-bell, such as used to be common in 
the farmhouses and inns. 

" I looked in the direction of the sound, when I saw a little way from the 
road a window and a light among the trees. I stopped nervously. 

" ' Is it imagination,' I asked myself. ' Is it a dream of the old story ? 
Shall I run, or turn toward the bell ? ' 

" I was frightened and my heart beat, but I am not a man to run. After 
hesitating for a few moments I turned into the wood in the direction of 
the window and the light, and found a path there which I began to follow 
cautiously. 

" I walked to the place where I had first heard the bell and seen the window 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 195 

and the light, but the window and the light were apparently as far away now 
as when I started from the road. As I watched I could see it move back, but 
I could hear nothing. 

" I stopped again. The window and the light soon seemed to stop. Should 
I run ? No. I would shout. So I cried out, ' Hullo ! ' 

" The rocks answered my loud call with many echoes. A startled partridge 
rose on whirring wings from some wild alder-bushes near me. Then all was 
still, or — did I imagine it ? — I thought I could hear the low piteous suppressed 
whine of a dog. The light vanished. 

" I knew not what to do. I was unarmed. I went forward very slowly and 
cautiously, when the path grew soft, and the earth began to crumble beneath 
my feet. I paused and listened. 

" A cry pierced the hollow air. How can I describe it ? It thrilled every 
nerve in my body. I can hear it now; it seemed as though all the intensity of 
a human heart was in it — it said, it shrieked as the cry of some pent-up force, 
— it said, — 

"'Silas!' 

" I knew the voice. It was a warning tone. I knew that dog's tone of 
warning. I stepped back and listened again. 

"I heard a struggle down in the distance. Where was I? It came to me. 
I was on the border of a ledge of rocks. Below me was a pond. Had I taken 
a few steps more I would have gone over into the water. 

" I felt that the way led to a false projection over the water. I had been 
drawn toward a trap to destroy me. I felt the situation then as clearly as I can 
see it now. 

" My every nerve quivered with terror, but my will grew stronger than ever 
before. I never knew how strong or how weak I was till then. 

" As I stood listening, a fearful oath rose from the pond. Then all was 
still. I looked up to the sky. It was the only object that seemed friendly. 
The clouds parted below the hunter's moon, and a wide silvery light swept over 
the scene. I was surely on a projecting edge of rock, or platform, over a pond. 

" Suddenly I heard a sound in the bushes. It was a patter of feet. A dog 
came bounding out of the savins toward me. He rose up, springing as it were 
into the air, shook his paws, and cried, — I can hear it now, — 

"'Silas! ' 

" It was my old coach dog. 

" I hurried back to the road, followed by the dog. Was it a dream? 
What had happened? 

" At near midnight I came to my old friend's farmhouse at Randolph, and 
roused the family. Before any one could speak I pointed to the dog. 



196 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



" ' Tell me, for heaven's sake, what is that? ' I cried. 
' That is a dog,' said my old friend, the farmer, — 'your old coach dog. 
What did you think it was? Where did you find him?' 

" We went the next morning to the scene of my night's adventure. One of 
the first things that we saw was the dead body of Searle, floating on the pond. 

"The light in the window of the Phantom inn had allured me to the edge 




SCENE IN OLD VIENNA. 



of a broad, false precipice, and I was just about to fall over into the pond when 
my old coach dog's warning word had saved me. The dog had evidently 
dragged his dark-minded master over the rocky cliff into the pond. 

" Searle had carried the window and light in his hand, and with covered 
feet had moved back to allure travellers. 

" ' Silas?' Yes, I must answer that question. What became of him ? I 
took him back to Albany with me. He was an old dog then, and used to 
repeat that word in his distress. He said it more than once on the day that 
he died." 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 197 

Another story, related by Mr. Marlowe, which was quite appropri- 
ate to the place, was as follows : — 



THE GREAT CHESHIRE CHEESES. 

THE Masons, whose history I used to hear, were among the founders of 
New Providence, the vanished village of the autumnal Berkshire Hills. I well 
recall the stories of Elder Leland that I used to hear in my old Swansea home, 
and especially the awful ghost-story that the courtly evangelist used to relate 
confidentially to a few friends. No Rhode Island farmer's boy of thirty years 
ago will ever forget that, and any allusion to it would make, in those days, 
young feet nimble in dark chambers and on lonesome roads. 

Times have, indeed, changed. No ghost-story, however vivid, would be 
likely to make a Rhode Island boy nervous to-day. 

I recall also the more cheerful story of the great Cheshire Cheese, as we 
used to hear it, and have often repeated, in my young churning days, the New 
Providence receipt for turning cream into butter under the miracle-working 
influence of the old-time dasher: — 

" Come, butter, come ; 
Peter stands at the gate, 
Waiting for the butter-cake, 
Come, butter, come." 

The rhyme of this persuasive ditty is not perfect, and I am unable to say 
who " Peter " was, though the name sounds Apostolic; but the Cheshire and 
Rhode Island farmers' wives could all declare that this brief invocation gave a 
wonderful efficacy to the churn-dasher. 

I shall never forget my first excursion into Cheshire to visit the once 
famous farms of New Providence, and the graves of Elder Leland and the 
heroes of Bennington. It was a glimmering September day, such as brings 
the tourist of New York to Lenox, not far away. 

The sky was an over-sea of gold. The Housatonic lay, here like a mirror 
of glass in the brown woodland pastures, there purling amid purple gentians 
over mossy dams. 

The wrecks of old orchard trees dotted the landscape ; fading beech-trees, 
with their bark perforated by the long bills of the golden-winged woodpeckers; 
aftermath in alluvial meadows ; cornfields with orange banners on the uplands, 
and, over all, Greylock, green-wooded and maple-tinted, looking down the valley. 



198 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Graveyards — like little villages of the dead — with mossy stones, touched 
the heart and fancies, and the town at last came full in view, with its white spire 
and faded inn. 

"Where is New Providence?" I asked of an old man who had stopped to 
rest on the cool russet sward under a leafy maple, where the locusts were sing- 
ing in the bright air. 

■' There is no New Providence any more," said he. " It is all gone : the 
hotels, the stores, the churches, all — there is not a house left. There is where 
it was.'' 

He pointed toward a sunny slope. How beautiful was the situation ! But 
there was not so much' as a house or an orchard. Shades of Oliver Gold- 
smith ! Could it be possible that here in New England was a veritable 
Deserted Village? 

" The inhabitants of New Providence all sleep in a little graveyard under 
the hill," said the stranger, filling his pipe. " That was once New Providence 
Purchase, and was settled from Providence Plantations. It is now called 
Stafford Hill. 

" Old Captain Joab Stafford, the hero of Bennington, is buried in the old 
graveyard, near the road. You can see his grave as you pass by." 

New Providence began in a pleasant joke. Old generous Captain Stafford, 
who was brought wounded at last from Bennington to his pleasant home and 
tavern, built his house in New Providence Purchase before he brought his wife 
from Rhode Island. 

When his fine house was completed, he went after Mrs. Stafford, but 
refused to give her any description of his new place. Across the Connecticut 
on horseback they hastened toward the mountains. 

" Now as we ride along," said he, " and notice the new settlements, tell me 
when we come to just such a house as you would like." 

They rode through Cheshire, once called the Kitchen, and at last the good 
woman lifted her eyes to a bowery hill almost in the shadow of Greylock. 

" How beautiful ! " said she. " There is just such a home and place 
as I should like to have. If I could only live there, I would be perfectly 
satisfied." 

" You shall live there," said her gallant husband. " That is our home." 

Out of that vanished house he was borne down the hill to his last resting- 
place in the valley below, and poets and orators spoke his praise. 

Elder John Leland, born in Grafton, Massachusetts, in 1754, came to 
Cheshire when quite a young man. He was on one occasion called upon to 
speak from the pulpit, when the pastor was absent. There came to him a flow 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 201 

of words and ideas which astonished his hearers much and himself more, and 
he felt that he was allotted to be a preacher. He was a Baptist-Quaker, like 
Roger Williams. 

It has been asserted that his influence made Madison President. He trav- 
elled to a distance of many thousand miles, preaching; crowds followed him 
everywhere, and queer stories of his eccentricities were repeated by every 
fireside. 

Among the old Cheshire humorists and the old story-tellers of the tavern 
at New Providence, and the half-way inn at Cheshire on the old Boston and 
Albany stage-route, were gallant Captain Stafford, the Bennington hero, Free- 
love Mason, the jolly mistress of the first regular stage-route hostelry, William 
Brown, or " Sweet Billy," -the " Artemas Ward" of Berkshire, —Elder John 
Leland, whose jokes were echoed ever by the sounding-board over his tall 
pulpit, and the rich old farmers by the name of Mason, Brown, Wood, and 
Cole, and the stage-drivers. 

The story of the great Cheshire Cheese was once a New England wonder- 
tale, but was seldom correctly told, in all of its essential details. The making 
of it furnishes a picture of the early humor of the village, than which few 
pastoral scenes can be more pleasing, or more widely in contrast with many 
of the grim Puritan legends. Cheshire has a cheese-factory now; then every 
farm had a cheese-press. There was joy among the industrious dames of 
Cheshire, when the old stage-driver of the Berkshire Hills blew his horn, and 
swung his hat, and shouted, " Hurrah for President Jefferson ! " The buxom 
dairy-women had been well-schooled in Democratic politics by Elder Leland, 
himself an intimate friend of Jefferson, and a disciple of the broad principles of 
the Declaration. 

" Toot, toot for Jefferson ! " rung out the horn and voice of Cameralsman, 
the lusty stage-driver, as he passed through the thrifty Mason farms. 

" Jefferson it is ! " said Freelove Mason, the ruddiest dame of the Berkshire 
Hills ; " and how shall we celebrate our victory like free and honest people 
that we are?" 

"How?" said the Cheshire dames. "We will make the biggest cheese 
ever pressed in America, — such an one as the farmers have been joking about, 
— and send it to the new President for a present. Every cow in Berkshire shall 
furnish the milk for the curd." 

I need not say that the great cheese was made. All the Yankee world 
knows that. The summer of bobolinks and morning-glories that followed the 
political spring of happiness in Cheshire saw a great gathering of curds on a 



202 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

certain day, and all the kirtled dames met at Elisha Brown's, and compounded 
the mammoth gift to the President. 

It was pressed in a cider-mill, and if it did not require four horses to draw 
it, it is said that that number was harnessed to the vehicle that brought it from 
the press, where it had been pressed for ten days. It weighed one thousand 
two hundred and thirty-five pounds, was carried to the Hudson and shipped to 
Washington. Elder Leland went with the great cheese, " preaching," as he 
said, " all the way." 

The stately correspondence between Leland and Jefferson, in offering and 
accepting the gift, is still preserved. Those were the days when every voter 
supposed himself to be a born king by right of the Constitution, and it 
took the old formal style of writing to express the sentiments of the new 
monarchs. Jefferson's letter, accepting the great cheese, was worthy of the 
author of " When in the course of human events." 

Elder Leland, tall and courtly, was well adapted to the dramatic part of 
the occasion. A grander commoner never entered the Republican court. 
Jefferson had often met the great revival preacher in Virginia, for Leland depop- 
ulated towns to listen to his fiery eloquence wherever he went. His calling to 
the ministry, like Saint Paul's, had come, as he believed, in the form of a voice 
out of the skies, and his tongue, to use the old Hebrew simile common in the 
old days, had been " touched by a burning coal from the altar." 

There are few preachers like Leland to-day. Eloquent as the old Meth- 
odist field preachers, elegant and courtly as a Camille Desmoulins, witty as a 
Swift or Steele, and far in advance of his times in the liberality of his opinions, 
a theological disciple of Roger Williams and Samson Mason, and a political 
follower of Jefferson, he was not only a remarkable preacher, but one of the 
most noted men of his time. He labored as a winter revivalist in Virginia for 
many years, before he made his home in Cheshire. 

It was one of the humors of the time to relate events of a pleasing charac- 
ter in the style of the Hebrew Chronicles, and the Chronicle of the Cheshire 
Cheese was once well-known in the story-telling town. It began: — 

"And Jacknips said unto the Cheshirites, ' Behold, the Lord hath put a 
ruler over us that is after our own hearts. Now let us gather together our 
curds, and carry them into the valley of Elisha, unto his wine-press, and there 
make a great cheese, that we may make a thank-offering unto the great 
man.' Now this saying pleased the Cheshirites, so they did as Jacknips had 
commanded." 

The great Cheshire Cheese was shared by the President with the governors 
of several States, to whom samples were sent. The story of it was a great 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 203 




SPANISH BUILDING. 



advertisement of Berkshire County; and it was resolved to make a still larger 
cheese, which should weigh sixteen hundred pounds. 

Elder Leland's church was famous for its psalmody. He himself wrote 
man)' hymns, among them the almost Ambrosian tone-picture, — 

" The day is past and gone." 

He used sometimes to ascend the pulpit singing. 

There was one of the numerous Brown family of Cheshire who was a 
famous singer in his day, and to him we will assign a popular story of the 
time. His voice not only filled the church, but went out of the window. His 
bass notes were deep and full, — "foot-notes," he called them, — and it was his 
special pride to inform the people in the then masterpiece of country-church 
choir music how 



204 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" The angel of 
The angel of 

The Lord came down. 
And glory shone around, 
And glory 
And g-1-o-r-y, etc." 

During the great winter revivals in Elder Leland's church, Singer Brown was 
all eyes, ears, and voice. But the dairy-making season that produced the sweet 
butter and mammoth cheeses for which Cheshire became famous was very 
trying to his eyelids, during the long Sunday sermons, and the tithing-man 
often had a sore trial to keep his attention steady after the " sixthly " or 
" seventhly." 

It was all so restful in the old church, — the bobolinks singing in the clover 
outside, the red-breasted robins in the tall trees ! The cool breezes came into 
the windows from the hayfields, over which the cloud-shadows passed. 

Then, too, even fiery Elder Leland's voice had a far-away sound when he 
came to the usual part of a New England sermon about the Jews in Jerusalem, 
and still more dreary was it when the Jews were in Babylon. 

Singer Brown, on such occasions, would become oblivious of both the Jews 
and the Gentiles, and would have to be waked by the vigilant tithing-man. 

Elder Leland himself had a genius for waking people on such restful and 
balmy days. Once, when a farmer under the gallery had fallen asleep and 
tipped back his head, with his mouth stretched open from ear to ear, some 
very imaginative boys in the gallery stuck a pin into a bean and lowered it 
down by a string to the open mouth, like a bucket into a well. 

When the tall Elder saw it he didn't rebuke the boys, but seizing the Bible, 
slammed it down on the pulpit with a cannon shake, at the same time calling 
out to the poor man : " Wake up ! wake up ! " 

The industrious farmer's slumbers were broken by these gentle circum- 
stances, and he was enabled to follow the wanderings of the Jews during the 
rest of the sermon. 

But Singer Brown, on one Sunday, fell asleep beside the old bass-viol amid 
such scandalous consequences that the tithing-man, the clerk, and the venerable 
deacons never forgave him. 

It all is supposed to have happened in the summer of 1803, the third year 
of the reign of the universal Kings under the good King Commoner, Thomas 
Jefferson, when ambitious people of Cheshire had put their heads together to 
make a bigger cheese than the one that had been made for their chosen Presi- 
dent. The history of this cheese is often confused with the Jeffersonian 
present. 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 207 

One Sunday morning in June, Goody Brown gave to her consort, Singer 
Billy, the long-necked pitcher, and sent him to the neighbors for milk. Billy 
went from house to house, but was refused. 

"Not to-day, Billy," said everyone; "we are saving our milk for the big 
cheese, you know." 

After Billy had wandered about amid the dews to the Masons', the Wag- 
goners', and others, without success, although all the pantries were overflowing, 
he obtained a pint of milk at last from a Federalist, who was not in full sym- 
pathy even with the enterprises of the community. 

It was now church time, and he was to sing bass to " The Lord descended 
from above " that day, in his view a stupendous performance. So he took 
his milk-pitcher along with him to the church, and up into the choir-loft. 

A red curtain hung on rings ran before the singers in the choir. The 
music books were placed on racks, and the choir was directly over the high 
pulpit, the deacon's seat, and the clerk's pew. A huge sounding-board huno- 
over the pulpit, which was a kind of mahogany pen, with stairs on each side, 
and doors. The top of the pulpit reached almost to the choir. 

Singer Billy sang well that morning the sonorous music of William Billings 
of Stoughton, and touched the " foot-notes " with impressive clearness. 

Then he felt that his work was over, and began to be oblivious to the truth 
that was being proclaimed under the sounding-board. The old deacons, too, 
after all the excitements of mowing, milkings, and the preparations for making 
of the new cheese, were not in the most receptive mood, but felt the world 
gliding away from them in various ways. 

The clerk fell quite asleep, and wandered away in the far regions of 
air beyond the solid continents of all theologies. Even the tithing-man had 
dropped his rod. 

In this hour, when watchfulness had ceased, disaster came, and brought a 
scandal upon the descendants of the heroic Samson Mason, and upon all. 

A dog came trotting up the choir stairs. He, too, had found milk scarce 
that morning, and smelling Singer Billy's pitcher near the red curtain, looked 
around and found that Billy and most of the singers were quite indifferent to 
current events. He ran his head down the long neck of the pitcher toward 
the pint of milk in the great hollow below. 

But while the descent of his head into the pitcher was easy, the withdrawing 
of it was otherwise. His head would not come out. He put up his inefficient 
paws and rubbed the outside of the pitcher ; he moved to and fro, backward 
and forward. At last, not knowing where he was going, he passed quite under 
the red curtain, and finally succeeded in pushing the pitcher over the balcony. 



2o8 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

There was an alarming crash in the deacon's pew. Was ever anything so 
extraordinary? It was not a centaur that had come down, half horse and half 
man, but a yet more marvellous beast, half dog and half pitcher. The pitcher 
was broken to fragments ; the dog howled pitifully ; the clerk and the deacons 
all awoke at once, and the tithing-man leaped to his feet. 

Singer Brown, too, suddenly came down from the blissful clover-gardens of 
dreamland, and looking over the curtain on the scene of mystery and disaster 
below, comprehended at a glance all that had happened. He prophetically cal- 
culated the future, and quickly slipped down the stairs, and out of the church. 
When questioned about the matter, he said, with unusual dignity, — 

" What but humiliation could you have expected from a people whose hearts 
had turned to the worship of cheeses? " 

I stood recently in the old Cheshire churchyard by the grave of good 
Elder Leland, and read with a tender reverence the following simple inscrip- 
tion, on his tombstone, which had been prepared by himself: — 

" Here lies John Leland of Cheshire, who labored to promote piety and to vindi- 
cate the civil and religious rights of all men. " 

His " Evening Hymn" is his true monument, but he will long be a figure 
in the history of that quaint past. 

" TRIP-TRIP-TO-DEE-DEE." 

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY. 

A HAND was raised in the reading-class. 

"Well?" I asked. 

" What became of that man? " 

" I do not know, James. This reading lesson is a humorous story." 

I was a teacher when the unexpected question was asked me. The second 
class in reading used a book, long ago out of print, that was called the " Intro- 
duction to the American Common School Reader and Speaker." Some of my 
readers may recall it. It contained a single humorous selection, entitled " A 
Melting Story." It was this selection that had been read, when my honest 
pupil, James, asked the question, — 

" What became of that man? " 

" That man " was the unhappy subject of the reading-book story. One 
cold winter's night he had slipped into a country store while the keeper had 
gone out to close the blinds, and had stolen a pound ball of butter, and put it into 
his hat, and replaced the hat, with the butter ball in the top of the crown, on 



FOLK-LURE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 209 

his head. The storekeeper saw the act, and determined to punish the thief in 
as cunning a way as the theft had been committed. He rushed into the store, 
confronted the butter stealer, and compelled him to sit down by the stove. He 
filled the stove with wood, and began to talk in a lively manner, and, adding 
seasoned wood to the roaring fire, made the place so hot that the butter 
melted in the thief's hat, and ran down over his face and shoulders. 

The thief, thus detained, made many excuses to get away, but the store- 
keeper would not accept them, but held him in torture, his face and hair 
dripping with the butter. At last, when the butter had thoroughly oiled his 
woful guest, he rose and said : " I say, Seth, the fun that I have had out of you 
to-night will well pay me for that pound of butter. I shall not charge it," or 
words with this meaning. This selection of reading was very popular in old 
schools forty years ago. 

I well recall the class that read this selection. It stretched across the plat- 
form in a zigzag row. Some of the boys were tall, some short, and the girls 
who stood at the head read much better than the boys. The days usually 
began to grow long, and the snows to melt and drip from the icicles on the 
roof, when we reached this selection, which was near the end of the book. The 
windows looked out on the long snowscapes, broken by icy woods and green 
savin trees. At a little distance the simple church spire was seen gleaming 
under the blue sky, and the dark slate-stones in the churchyard were a constant 
reminder of the mortality of us all. 

The pupils brought their dinners in tin dinner pails, and often shared their 
sweet-breads with each other. Some of the pupils were very poor, and could 
only bring corn bread for the noon lunch. James's father was a prosperous 
farmer, and provided him with generous lunches, and he used to share them 
with the poor boys and girls. I had learned to love him for these acts of 
generosity. James was as honest as he was generous. He had a very sym- 
pathetic nature, and it was this that prompted him to ask with a serious face 
while the rest of the class were laughing, — 

" What became of that man ? " 

The question haunted me for the half hour that the reading exercise con- 
tinued, though I had regarded the story as a fiction. Just before I dismissed 
the class I said, — 

" James, I should think from your tone of voice and serious look that you 
rather sympathized with the thief." 

" If we knew all things in people's hearts, we should pity everybody," he 
said. " The Bible says that if a man be overtaken in a fault, those that have 
spiritual strength should restore him. I would never have published a story 

14 



2IO ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

like that. I would have given the man a chance to regain his self-respect. 
Would n't you ? " 

I can see him now, — his manly, handsome face, clear blue eyes, high color, 
and intensity of expression. Five years afterwards he entered Andover Semi- 
nary, and the feathery palms of a missionary graveyard under a tropic sky wave 
over his dead body now. 

The pupils dropped their slates, and the class lowered their books to hear 
what I would say. I hesitated. The schoolroom grew painfully still, the wood 
roared on the fire of the stove, and the evergreen, or creeping-jenny, that had 
been turned around the stove-pipe, crackled and fell. 

" I should feel that it was a duty that I owe to the public safety to expose 
a thief," I answered. " Would n't you, James ? " 

"I had rather change an evil-doer into an honest man," he replied. "In 
that case he might never steal again. I " — he hesitated. There was the same 
painful stillness in the room. 

" What, James? " 

" I have heard that that man is still living in Maine, and that after that 
joke he lost all regard for respectability, and became a beggar. I do not know 
that the report is true, but a man from Portland told my father so in my 
hearing." The stillness continued. He added : " Governor Winthrop forgave 
a thief who robbed his woodpile, by sending for him and offering to give him 
the wood he needed." 

The term drew to its close. Washington's Birthday passed, the bell ringing 
out in the little white steeple. The March days grew long and bright, with 
occasional flurries of snow; the bluebirds came fluting into the gray orchards; 
the woodpeckers tapped the hollow trees, and the wild geese passed over, 
honking like flying trumpets or mellow horns in the sky. Early April brought 
examination day. The grave committee came, making my little principality 
tremble ; heard the classes recite, read, and spell, made a " few remarks," and 
then the winter school was over. 

I can see those old pupils now, as they stood in the yard about the door 
in the late April afternoon, their faces bright in the western sunlight. I never 
met them again as I saw them then. 

I parted with James with peculiar reluctance, as he was one of the most high- 
minded boys that I had ever met, and had a heart to feel and a hand to help. 

On examination day the " Melting Story" was read, which elicited from one 
of the members of the committee the rugged remark: — 

" That's a good one; served him right; it wouldn't ha' been improper for 
the boys to laugh after a story like that, would it, teacher? " 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 211 

" No," I answered. " I allow them to laugh in such a case." 

But the class did not laugh. James's inquiries in regard to the narrative had 
changed the spirit of all the young readers. 

The impression that James had made haunted me. It seemed to me that 
the story was incomplete, and I carried the sympathetic inquiry of my pupil 
in my mind : " What became of that man ? " 

One blue April day, a few years after the incident that had occurred in my 
dear old class, I was walking the streets of a great seaport city in Maine, when 
a very strange scene met my eye. 

Two boys came, as it were, flying from a narrow street into a public square, 
each screaming at the top of his voice, — 

" Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee ! Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee ! Who stole the butter? " 

My eye followed them in lively curiosity, and at once the old story in the 
reading-book and James's inquiry came rushing back to my mind. I had heard 
that there were two stories of this kind, and which one had given rise to the 
popular reading-book narrative could hardly be determined except by the 
author, of whom I knew nothing. 

What followed caused me to stand still. A poor, wretched-looking old 
man, with a basket on his arm, came hobbling and jumping out of the same 
street, with a cobblestone in one hand. He was evidently chasing the boys. 
As he entered the square, the boys turned around and cried again, — 

" Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee ! Who stole the butter ? Who stole the butter ? " 

The old man came to a halt, and, with wild eyes and a frantic movement, 
threw the stone at the boys. They dodged the revengeful missile, and skipped 
away, calling, — 

" Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee ! Trip-Trip-to-dee-dee ! " 

A well-dressed stranger stopped near to see the odd episode. 

" Who is that old man ? " I asked. 

" Oh, that is Trip-Trip-to-Day-Day. He is a character here. The boys 
torment him. They like to have him chase them. There are few boys in this 
part of the city that he has not chased." 

" What is his occupation ? " I continued. 

" Oh, a common beggar. He is almost the only street beggar in this city. 
He lives, I think, in some old hut outside of the place, and comes here begging 
each morning, with his basket on his arm. Look at him." 

I looked. The running and the vengeful throwing of the stone had 
exhausted him, and he had just sunk down in a heap, as it were, on a seat in 
the square. 

The old question that James had asked came to me again with irresistible 



2 12 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

force. I crossed the street to the square, and sat down on the long bench 
beside the half-animated bundle of rags. 

The old man peered into my face. 

"I — am — all exhausted," he said; "'gin out — I can't do as I used 
to do." 

" It's a fine day," I said. 

" Yes — ha — a fine day for fine folks. Ha — all days are pretty much the 
same to me. Are you a stranger here ? " 

" Yes ; what is your name ? " 

" Seth — ha — Seth. That is my name. What 's yourn ? " 

" Why do the people here allow the boys to trouble an old man like you ? 
I thought people were civil here, — that this was a Christian city." 

" You did, did ye, stranger? Ha, you thought that the people were civiller, 
ha? Well, they be generally, as a rule, but not to old Seth. Well, never mind. 
I shall get through by and by. I shall have to throw rocks at 'em while I live, 
and can hobble about, ha. Stranger, I '11 tell you how it was. It may seem 
strange to you that one thing like that should ruin a man's life, but it has mine. 
I 'd been careless about living on the square for some time, when it happened 
— that joke that crippled me for life." 

He caught his breath convulsively with a halting " Ha," and then 
continued : — 

" It was a terrible cold night when I went into that store, and found that 
the store-keeper had gone out to shut up the blinds. I was all alone, and there 
came over me the impulse to profit by the chance. Somethin' seemed to 
whisper to me : ' Here is your luck, make the most of it.' Stranger, there was 
once a time when I would have no such temptation if I 'd gone into an empty 
shop with an open drawer of uncounted dollars. 

" I saw the balls of butter in the cool corner of the store. I seized one. 
My conscience began to burn, and I threw water upon it by saying: ' I '11 pay 
for it at some other time ! ' Men cool conscience in that way. 

" The storekeeper came back with a queer look on his face. He did not 
appear nat'ral. He was too friendly. He made me sit down close to the stove. 
I could feel my heart beat under my coat. When a person is dealing unfair 
with you, you feel it in the air. I could feel in the air that something was 
wrong. 

" Well, the stove roared ; it turned red. The place was close, and I was 
so nervous that I began to perspire. Then all at once — how the thing struck 
me like a death-shot ! — the butter began to melt. I could feel it trickling 
down my hair, and dropping into my back. I thought of the old hymn about 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 215 

the holy oil and Aaron's beard. I wished that the butter in my hat was like 
that. I hoped still that the storekeeper did not suspect me, but I felt that he 
did. The butter was shaping itself to my head. I dared not take off my hat. 
I wondered if the butter were soaking through it. I tried to move back, but 
there was no room. Then I felt the oil creeping down the back of my head. 
It would soon flow over my forehead. I leaped up ; I said : ' I must go — I 
ain't well — let me out — I must go.' But the storekeeper stood before me, and 
made me sit down again. Had I been right and strong within, I could not 
have done it. But a conscience-stung man will do anything, — he is a coward, 
and his heart is wax. 

" I sat down, with a feeling as though I was stifled. The butter kept on 
melting ; it ran down over my face, and I wiped it off with my mittens and 
comforter. I never before dreamed how much oil there was in a pound of 
butter. Would it ever cease to flow? 

" Well, the storekeeper let me go at last, and told me of the fun that my 
punishment had given him. Stranger, I deserved the punishment; I acknowl- 
edge it was just. But I wished that he had taken some other way, and given 
me a chance. I was not wholly bad ; I might not have been where I am now. 

"The next day all the people in the town were laughing at me. Stranger, 
there is nothing that kills a man like ridicule, and since that time I Ve cared 
for nothing but to trip, trip about, and do chores, and beg, and throw stones 
at the boys. Stranger, I sometimes wish that I was young again when I hear 
the robins sing. But the spring stalk never blooms twice. Stranger, I was to 
blame. Ah, well, my glass is almost run ; it can never be turned again." 

On one side of the square, across the street, was an orchard-yard, and some 
low, budding peach-trees. Into the boughs of this yard robins came chirping 
and singing while the old man was speaking, and when he became silent the 
birds sang again. The old man listened to the first song of the robin, and, 
turning to me, said : — 

"Robins? It 's spring again. I 'm glad the winter is over. I like to hear 
the robins when they first begin to sing. About the only friends I 've got is 
the robins." 

" How is that, my friend? " 

" Stranger — ha — you 've read about old Bible times? They used to stone 
people who stole in those days. They don't do so now, but it's just as bad — 
wrongdoers throw stones at themselves. All my troubles began with stealing 
a pound of butter. I began to throw stones at myself, and the world only 
followed me." 

The sun grew warm. The purple sea rolled afar, here and there white 



2l6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

with flying sails and with the long breakers that churned on rocks and ledges. 
A robin seemed to catch the inspiration of the day, and her voice quivered 
with thrilling joy and flute-like heraldings 

" Just hear that bird," said the old man. " I 'd like to have a robin sing 
over me after I am gone. No one cares for me, and I seem to have lost inter- 
est in everything. Well, I 'm rested now, and I must travel on." 

He rose and hobbled away, his face turned upward toward the sun. When 
he had gone a little distance, he stopped to hear the spring robin sing again. 
He seemed to catch a moment of happiness ; then his face fell, and he went on. 

I inquired in regard to the history of this man at the hotel. 

" He has no friends, and lives all alone," said the clerk. " There's a piece 
in the reading-book about him, or a man like him; you may have seen it." 

" Is it called ' A Melting Story'? " I asked. 

" Yes ; I think that is the title of it." 

" A Melting Story ! " The last scene of all was indeed a melting story, and 
one that left not only tears in my eyes, but a lesson in my experience ! 

Ten years had passed, and I was again in the same port city, and visited 
the same neighborhood. The memory of my old class came back to me, and 
with it the thought of " Trip-Trip-to-Dee-Dee." I made inquiry of a friend 
about the old man. 

" His journey is over at last," was the answer. " He was very old when he 
died, — over an hundred, I think. He lived alone, and I have heard that he 
died alone. He used to think the robins came to sing to him. 

"The joke of the pound of butter ruined him, and followed him to the end 
of his life, 

"Wherever he used to go, the air was sure to ring with the shout: 'Who 
stole the butter? ' 

" One day he went hobbling out of town. ' I shall never come back again,' 
he said. ' They have stoned me to death with their cries. Old Seth is going 
where he will have peace, and the robins will sing over him, when the spring 
comes to the harbor. Old Seth is now going for good to the robins.' 

"The prophecy was true. When we go out to ride I will show you where 
he used to live." 

That afternoon we rode in sight of the sea. My friend turned into a quiet 
way at last. We came to a hut, and near it was a heap of stones, and over the 
door was a robin's nest. 

" They say he used to live there. I do not know. But for a generation he 
was a wellnigh homeless wanderer in these roads and streets. The inhumanity 
shown to that poor old witless man is something more than a melting story, 



FOLK-LORE TALES IN THE OLD COLONIAL KITCHEN. 21 J 

A single evil report may follow a man to the death of his self-respect, and 
much that is good in his heart and soul. I pity the lips that taunt a man 
like that." 

I thought of the old reading-class and of James, and I read in James's 
question the lesson that it had intended to imply. My dear old pupil was 
right, at least, in the charity of his thought, and I shall always love his memory 
in association with the curious history of " Trip-Trip-to-Dee-Dee." 



CHAPTER X. 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 




^>- 



MONG the most delightful of all the entertainments 
given under the auspices of the World's Congress 
Auxiliary in the Art Palace, Chicago, was the festival 
of the home songs of all nations. It was held in 
the halls of Washington and Columbus, the same 
singers passing from the one hall to the other, so 
that two audiences might enjoy the re- 
view of the world's popular songs on 
the same evening. 

The singers, many of whom came 
from the nations represented on the 
Midway Plaisance, were dressed in the 
costumes of their own country, and were 
accompanied by their national instru- 
ments. The most beautiful of all folk- 
songs were those of Wales ; among the 
most unique, those of India. 

The representation of old New Eng- 
land tunes was interesting. The con- 
cert closed late at night, the last num- 
ber being " The Battle Cry of Freedom," 
sung by Dr. Root, the composer of the song. 

Our trio listened to this wonderful festival with delight. 




MR. FIELD. 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 



2IQ 



" Every town ought to have a choral society to sing these songs," 
said Mr. Marlowe ; " they are, for the most part, songs of the heart. 
Even the songs of the nations that we call heathen have human 
sympathy in them. The human heart is one." 




HUNGARIAN DANCERS. 



Mr. Marlowe saved his programme for use in making up some 
limited entertainment of the kind for home use. 

" I will tell the story of ' Hannah, Who Sang Countre,' " he said, 



2 20 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

"when the Club meets again, and I will sing some of the old New 
England tunes while telling the story." 

Mr. Marlowe carried into effect the thought. The story was as 
follows : — 

HANNAH, WHO SANG COUNTRE. 

A THANKSGIVING STORY. 

I CAN see her now in my mind's eye, as she used to sit alone on the church 
steps, her white face beaming with benevolence beneath her gray poke bonnet. 
The great bell hung over the steps, high in air. It was silent then, or rung only 
by the sharp gusts of winds. Before her was the old Puritan graveyard, in 
which slept all to whom she could claim kin. Hannah Semple was a poor, lone 
woman. Her home was among the lilac bushes and apple-trees, but all that 
was mortal of those dear to her was here under the gray stones. She loved to 
visit them at early evenings. Her Sundays were always spent with them. 
Hannah Semple's heart had been true to her own family while they were 
living; it was true still, and would always be the same. 

I can, in memory, hear her sing, and her cracked voice was tender and 
pitiful. Her favorite hymn began with a curious simile that excited my curi- 
osity before I knew its history, and my imagination, afterwards : 

" As on some lonely building's top 
The sparrow tells her moan, 
Far from the tents of joy and hope, 
I sit and grieve alone." 

The tune was " Hallowell," a great favorite in the olden time. It was one 
of those tunes in which, to my boyish ears, the singers of the different parts 
chased each other about in a most harmonious and wonderful way, and finally 
came Out together at the end. The country choirs who could perform such 
tunes to the accompaniment of bass viols, were thought by the country people 
to have made great progress in musical art. It was in the days of these 
majestic performances in the choir-loft of the progressive Puritan church, that 
Hannah Semple used to sing countre. 

The church was closed now, and had been closed for two years : as silent 
as the graveyard in which the hardy Puritans slept under the mosses and zigzag 
stones. There was a progressive spirit in the old Swansea neighborhood, 
which was one of the successive communities that ran from Plymouth to the 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 22 1 

old towns founded by Roger Williams and the Quaker-Baptists on the Narra- 
gansett Bay. This was shown by the introduction of the bass viol into the 
choir, which soon found an evolution in two bass viols ; then in fugued tunes 
by Billings and H.olden and Maxim ; then more bass viols, which were played 
on Thanksgiving Day. 

The greatest choral performance in those days, when Hannah sang countre, 
was a tune called " Majesty," by Billings. William Billings was the musical 
wonder of these eventful times, — a rural Handel of the many neighborhoods 
of Puritan churches. He did not know much about counterpoint, — he followed 
only natural inspiration ; but his music is still to be found in collections. This 
tune, " Majesty," was thought to be his masterpiece, and was sung on all great 
occasions. The words were as stirring as the music : — - 

" The Lord descended from above, 
And bowed the heavens most high, 
And underneath his feet he cast 
The darkness of the sky. 

" On cherub and on cherubim 
Full royally he rode, 
And on the wings of mighty winds 
Came flying all abroad." 

Vigorous indeed was the rendering of this tune on Independence days, after 
the reading of the immortal Declaration, and before the Oration; and as 
inspiring also on Thanksgiving mornings, before the long sermon. It required 
much practice on the part of the orchestra, and hard were the bitings of the 
tuning fork, and severe were the rehearsals, before it could be acceptably 
performed. The soprano was a rural Patti, and as for the basso profundo, 
there is no present comparison. 

To sing countre was held to be a great accomplishment in the days of the 
music of Billings, Maxim, and Holden. By countre we do not mean the counter 
alto of the present time, but a kind of alto or contralto. It was often called 
the "natural alto," for in these days of rural Handels. each church developed 
one or more female singers that were thought to have the gift of singing alto 
by direct inspiration. 

In the prosperous days of the old Swansea church, when the descendants 
of heroic Samson Mason, of Cromwell's army, and of like heroes, sent out 
missionary colonies to Nova Scotia and elsewhere, Hannah Semple sang 
countre in the ancient meeting-house, and her voice was the pride of the many 
neighborhoods. People used to visit the church from the distant villages in 



2 22 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

ark-like carryalls, and it was often said that many of them came less to hear 
the long sermon, in regard to the domestic affairs of the Jews in Jerusalem, 
than to hear musical Hannah, who sang countre. 

In the days of her musical triumphs Hannah never changed her humble 
name into Hannahetti. Her guileless soul never entertained any vanity like 
that, and yet local appreciation had given her a name as long as that of any 
modern singer. She was never spoken of as simply Hannah, but always as 
" Hannah, who sang countre" a name that would be sufficiently picturesque 
for a modern concert bill. 

I first saw the old woman on a Sunday morning, as I was riding with my 
father to another church. It was in early May. 

As we came to a low, red cottage, a gate in front slowly opened, and the 
tall, thin form of a woman appeared, in a gray dress, Rob-Roy shawl, and high 
poke bonnet, followed by a Maltese cat. There was something so pleasant in 
the expression of her face, so patient and kindly, that I followed her move- 
ments with sympathetic curiosity. 

" Who is that, Father? " I asked, in an undertone. 

" That is ' Hannah, who sang countre! She holds a meeting alone every 
Sunday morning, on the old church steps, and declares that the church- 
members will come together again, and there will be a great thanksgiving, if 
she remains faithful. Her mind is slightly unbalanced, and she thinks she 
is a prophetess." 

My father bowed to her, and her face lightened up as she said, — 

" A beautiful morning. 'T is a morning of the trees of the Lord, and I am 
one of the branches. Do you believe in the Great Thanksgiving?" Her face 
seemed full of hope. 

" No, Hannah, no," said my father, truthfully. 

"No? Well, I am sorry you don't believe it. But I must be faithful. It 
is sure to come, for it has been revealed to me. I have been faithful to the 
dead, — and now I must be faithful to the living. This is all I have to live for. 
It will come ! The people of the Lord in these plantations will gather again. 
The doors will open, and there will be great thanksgiving. I shall be there, — 
right before the pulpit, right by the deacon's seat. It has been revealed to 
me. I don't know how I shall be there. That is a veiled mystery; there is a 
shadow over it ; I cannot see how it will be, but I shall be there." 

"Where are you going this morning? Will you ride? " asked my father. 

" I 'm going to meetin'." 

"Who is to preach?" 

"I." 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 225 

" Who attends the meeting? " 

" I." 

" Who sings? " 

" I." 

" Do you sing countre?" 

She dropped her eyes, and looked down on the violets, and when at last 
she lifted her face, it was wet with tears. 

" Bless you, no ! There is no one now to sing cotintre. It takes two voices 
to sing countre. They will sing again after the Great Thanksgiving, but now I 
am left to sing alone. I have to sing the upper part now. My voice is not 
50 good as it used to be." 

She broke some purple lilacs from the sunny bushes by the roadside, and 
gave them to me. I thanked her, and, with a heart full of boyish sympathy, 
said, — 

" I wish I had something to give you." 

" You are a good boy to say so, but I don't expect anything from any one 
now. My folks are all housed in the graveyard, and the sun is shinin' upon 
them, and the violets bloom in there. I shall be with them soon. I wish you 
would come to meetin' with me some Sunday morning. I '11 sing to ye, and 
tell of my vision, and the Great Thanksgiving. It is lonesome to preach all to 
■one's self, and the dead." 

" Don't any one ever come to hear you? " asked I. 

" Yes, the Lord comes regularly. They are there. Those I love are always 
there, down under the moss. Do they listen? I think they do. The sun 
comes down on the steps, and the winds come from the meadows, and the 
birds come. The world is full of beautiful things that come to hear me preach 
to myself. Child, if you will come to hear me next Sunday mornin', I will 
sing you one of the most beautiful songs that you ever heard, and will tell you 
about the Great Thanksgiving, just as I said. Now you will come — do." 

The next Sabbath was not a meeting day with the family. The horses had 
been worked so hard in ploughing that Father decided that they must be 
allowed to rest. At the breakfast-table an allusion was made to old Hannah, 
and I startled the family with the question, — 

" May I go over there to-day, and see Hannah, and get some lilacs? " 

"Yes," said my mother, whose heart was all sympathy. "You would be 
company for her. I never knew a woman who was so self- forgetful, or did so 
much for poor people and sick people, as she has done. She is not a prophet- 
ess, but I do think if the angels of heaven have a message for any one, it must 
be for her. Poor old Hannah ! " 

is 



2 26 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" Perhaps she will tell you about her beau, Peter Rugg, who thought that a 
sheep was a catamount," said one of the work-people, dryly. 

As I approached the silent meeting-house, I saw, through the opening in 
the locust-trees, Hannah, sitting on its sunny steps. She met me with a smile,, 
exclaiming, "Come in; meetin' hasn't begun. I'm glad you've come. We 
will have the service, then I will prophesy as the Lord commands, and after 
that you shall go home with me for some cake to eat. You will live to see 
the Great Thanksgiving. It has been revealed to me." 

She held a hymn book in her hand, and an old-time parallelogram of tunes, 
with slant sides, lay beside her. She took up the music book, opened it, and 
held it in one hand, and the hymn book in the other. 

" This tune that I am goin' to sing has a mighty curious history," said she. 
" It was written by Abraham Maxim, or Granville Maxim. He lived in Maine,, 
and he named his tunes for the towns in Maine : ' Portland,' ' Hallowell,' ' Bath/ 
and the like. 

" He was disappointed in love, Maxim was. So was I. I '11 tell you about 
it when I get home, after meetin'. One day he went out into the woods to hang 
himself, carryin' with him a rope. He sat down in a lonely place, near a shed, 
to meditate before he tied the rope to a tree. Well, as Providence would have 
it, a sparrer, whose nest had been disturbed, uttered its little plaintive cry of 
fear, because of its young. It touched his heart, and he wrote down on a 
piece of birch-bark the hymn I 'm goin' to sing. Then he wrote to the hymn 
a tune in deep minor, endin' with a very solemn, chord. It's very comfortin' 
to me." 

She lifted up the music book, and sang the most melancholy piece of music 
to which I ever listened, ending with the very solemn chord : — 

" As on some lone/y building's top 
The sparrow makes her moan, 
Far from the tents of joy and hope 
I sit and grieve alone." 

Hannah then made a prayer in glowing Hebrew figures, a kind of rhapsody 
of Hebrew poetry. She sang another hymn tune of Maxim's, then laid down 
her books and stood up. 

" My child," she said, " this is my text; it was written for you thousands of 
years ago, — 'And Reuben returned unto the pit; and behold Joseph was not 
in the pit.' " Her thought was that a lost opportunity for doing good, of being 
loving, kind, and merciful, could seldom be recalled. Her words were homely 
and quaint, but her figures and ideas were poetic. She preached charity to all 
men. I recall only one whole sentence. It was : " Never lose an opportunity 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 227 

of doing good; if you do, it will injure^//. We are all passin' away; he that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear." 

When she had finished her discourse, she said, " Now, I am goin' to> 
prophesy." 

She stood in silence at first, looking up to the sky; then lifting her hand, 
she repeated the first six verses of the Fifty-first chapter of the poetry of 
Isaiah, in a tone quite unlike her usual voice. 

" It will come," she said, — " that Great Thanksgiving will come in these 
towns that were founded by the old prophets. You will be there; that is 
revealed to me. I shall be there. But how? That is not clear. When I try to 
see myself there, there comes a cloud; the vision shuts down. Men have shut 
the doors of the old church, but the doors of the heavens are not closed. 
The Great Thanksgiving that I see will come, if I only prove faithful. It will 
come! It will come! The people will gather, as in days of old. There will 
be preachin' in the old pulpit, and singin', though I may not be here to sing 
countre. I can see the people comin' through the graveyard, under the trees, 
but I am not there. Oh, where am I? Where am I? I don't see myself 
anywhere; yet the Voice tells me I shall be there." 

She sank down, a shadow on her serene face. 

She arose again, and sang a strange hymn. Each stanza ended with the 
words : " With glory in our souls." It was a long hymn, with a plaintive air. 

" Come, child," said she, when the song ended, " meetin' is over now. Let 
us go." 

She led me to the red cottage among the lilac-trees. How clean and neat 
it was! Then, in her kindly way, she brought me cake and milk, and drove 
out of the house a solitary fly, an early intruder. 

" You live alone? " I said. 

" Oh, no, no, child ; they all live with me ; they come to visit me. The 
Lord lives with me, when I don't murmur nor complain, and He never turns 
against me. 

" Shall I tell you about myself ? Well, I was very happy as a child, roam in' 
among the berry pastures, goin' to the deestrict school, and helpin' Mother 
about the house. Mother was a great-hearted, good woman, and Father was an 
honest, hard-working man. I never thought that I should be a public singer, 
and sit in the gallery, and sing countre in the ' Easter Anthem.' I never 
thought I should sing before the great Daniel Webster, on Independence Day. 

" It all came about in this way. Old Schoolmaster Mason opened a singin 5 
school in the vestry of the church, and asked me to attend. I always loved 
music, and I did not go to the school but a little while, before I found that I 



228 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

could sirtg countre. Even in a new piece that I had never seen, if I only had 
the words before me, I could make up a countre to the singing of the air. 

" I learned to sing low tones that the people thought were wonderful. It 
used sometimes to trouble me because they seemed to think more about how 
I sang, than what I sang. 

" There was a young man in the neighborhood, at the time, named Peter 
Rugg. He is dead now. He used to listen to the countre at the singin' school 
as though he was spellbound. One night, after I had been singin', he came to 
me, and asked leave to see me home. He was fine-looking, with curly hair 
and a high forehead, and he tried to sing tenor. I liked him, and, after a time, 
he used to visit me often, and one night he said, — 

" ' Hannah, if I ever should save money enough to marry anybody, it would 
be you ; you do sing countre so solemn.' 

" I felt that he paid to me the greatest compliment that could be paid to a 
woman, and says I, says I, — 

" ' Peter, if I were ever to leave my home, I should want to jine my lot with 
yourn, you do sing so high.' 

" I was kind of modest, and I did n't wish to say any more than he did, but 
I really did love him, and I would have been glad to have married him. 

"Well, one winter, all the country round was thrown into a state of great 
fright, by a report that some woodchoppers had seen a catamount in the woods. 
Soon after this, sheep and pigs began to disappear, and the loss was laid to 
the catamount. There used to be catamounts in New England, and in the 
great woods, along the Pocassett coast, one would be seen occasionally. 

" The excitement grew. A great many people began to think that they 
had seen the catamount, though whether there was one, at that time, in Massa- 
chusetts, no one can say. 

" One day, when the people were all excited about the catamount, Peter 
Rugg took tea at our house, and went with me in the evenin' to the singin' 
school. I sang my best that night, and Peter was so pleased that he said to 
me: 'Hannah, whatever may happen, I will always be true to you.' I was 
very happy, and we left the vestry to walk home. 

" We took a roundabout way, but had not gone far, when we heard a 
patterin' of feet on the other side of the wall. 

" ' Hark, it 's the catamount ! ' Peter cried. 

" ' I '11 cling to you forever,' said I. ' We will die true. If he devours you, 
he shall devour me.' 

" We hurried on, trembling in every limb. The patter of the feet continued 
on the other side of the wall. 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL 



229 



" ' Let go my arm,' he said, ' and I '11 see what it is.' 

" I released his arm, when, could you believe it? he ran off, sayin', — ' I '11 
get a gun,' and he flew over the hill. I never saw him again for a year. I 
stood dumb in the road. In my indignation all fear left me. A moment later 
I heard a sheep ' ba-a ' on the other side of the wall. 

" Nobody can tell what a heavy heart I carried home that night. All 
respect for the man I thought I loved was gone. I cried myself to sleep. For 
months I suffered more than I can ever tell, but I never told the story while 
Peter lived. I forgave him when death touched him. We are all poor and 
weak. We must be merciful in our thoughts. 

" Well, Father was stricken with the palsy, and Mother, she began to lose her 
mind, and thought she had committed the unpardonable sin, or that she should 
do some violence to herself, and she wanted to be watched all the time. She 
did n't sleep much for years, and, amid all these troubles, my only sister died. 
I tried to take care of them all. I did my best. How I used to work in those 
days ! There were weeks at a time when I could not take off my dress at 
night. 

" Well, the old folks died; then my poor sister passed away: so life goes. 
One goes, then more, and the number grows. I have no blood kin now. The 
lot in the graveyard is full, but sometimes they visit me in spirit. It makes me 
happy to think that I did all I could for them, when they were living. I know 
where they are; they know where I am. There is no real partin' among 
hearts that are true to each other. 

" I had one great comfort in all my hard lot. It was music. I did love to 
sing. My voice made me a little vain at first, but I meant to use it only for 
good, and never for myself. I came to hold it as a trust. I could see how it 
helped and comforted others, and that made me happy. I used to sing, 
'Peace, troubled soul,' at funerals, and, ' Come, ye disconsolate,' and, ' Come 
unto me when shadows darkly gather.' I had no father, mother, sister, brother, 
husband, or child ; but I was happy in the choir. That fellowship was every- 
thing to me. 

"Then came the great church quarrel. How can such things be! A part 
of the members became Six-Principle Baptists, and a part Christian Baptists, 
and each claimed the church. Neither party would yield. So the old church 
was closed. The doors were nailed up, and the rope taken off the bell. 

" I felt that I was utterly alone when the bell ceased to ring," she said. 
" People sent for me to take care of their sick, to comfort the dying, and to lay 
out the dead, and sing at funerals. That was all the life I had. Then my 
voice began to break, and my hair to turn gray. It is white, now, — see. 



230 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" One morning I came home early, after watching all night with poor 
Widow Green, who was sick so long. I laid down on the lounge, with my 
dress on, and fell asleep. It was the day after it was resolved to close the 
church. Well, there came to me a vision. I seemed to be sittin' alone on the 
church steps, when there stood before me a noble-lookin' man, in a silvery 
haze, and said : ' I am Elder John Myles. I was the founder of these planta- 
tions. I love this people, and the old church, which I founded. You are 
God's child. Be true to His cause. Go to the old church every Sunday, and 
hold a meetin' on the steps. If you remain true, the people will be gathered 
here again, and there will be a Great Thanksgiving, and you will be there in 
body or in soul.' I woke. It was gone, — the beautiful face in the silver cloud. 
But the words were printed on my mind. They are there, — always there. 

" People call me crazy Hannah, but they all send for me when they are in 
trouble. Their harvests come and go, but the bell does not ring, nor the doors 
open. But I am true to the vision. The Great Thanksgiving will come, and I 
shall be there." 

She then sang the song that she had promised. The words and music were 
really beautiful. I recall the first lines : — 

" How sweet to reflect on the joys that await me 
In yon blissful region, the haven of rest." 

One of the stanzas began : — ■ 

" Then hail, blessed state ! hail, ye songsters of glory ! 
Ye harpers of bliss, soon I '11 meet you above." 

The beatific look that I had seen in her face, on the church steps, came 
back to her. It was the most lovely expression I ever saw. 

The music of the school of Billings, Holden, and Maxim, and the hymns 
and ballads to which it was written, were no weak compositions. There were 
people in those days who delighted to sing — 

" If you want to see the devil run, 
Shoot him with the Gospel gun," 

to a dance rhythm, but the primitive, original psalmody of the old Orthodox 
churches was, as a rule, as solid as it was solemn. " While shepherds watched 
their flocks by night" had something of modern lightness and sprightliness, 
which may account for its popularity to-day, as a number in the programme 
of old folks' concerts; but Maxim's "Turner" and "Bath," and Holden's 
"Coronation" and "No war nor battle sound," and Billings' "Boston," and 
many tunes, all of which formed a part of the musical experience of the best 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 23 1 

New England homes, some fifty years ago, were serious work, of the school of 
Tausur and of Handel. 

The great patriotic song of those times was entitled " Ode on Science." 
This was the chef-d'ceuvreoi Independence days and Thanksgivings, and Hannah 
had once sung countre in the performance of it before Daniel Webster. 

Two years after my interview with Hannah she responded to the Governor's 
Proclamation, and, faithful to the old traditions, resolved to celebrate the 
approaching Thanksgiving on the church steps. On the morning of that day 
she took her music book, which contained the famous " Ode on Science," put 
her spectacles into her ample pocket, and, followed by her cat, went to the 
steps of the old meeting-house. It was a mild Indian summer day, of melting 
frosts, dropping nuts, and lingering splendors. The woods were crimson, with 
an odor of decay in the leaves, and the orchards red, with a cidery scent. The 
call of the lively bluejay was heard here and there, and the whir of the par- 
tridge wings on the margin of the woods. The farmers were busy husking their 
stacks of corn, and the cellar doors were heaped with squashes and pumpkins 
of enormous size, taking a last mellowing in the sun. 

Just as Hannah arose on the church steps to give thanks for all these 
blessings of plenty, Deacon Goodwin approached in his cart, that was loaded 
with corn and pumpkins. He took the Christian view, as the word was pro- 
nounced, in the great theological discussion. His heart was touched at the 
sight of the white hair of old Hannah, and he stopped to hear her sing. 

It was a striking picture that she presented, on that bright morning, in her 
straight gown, poke bonnet, Rob Roy shawl, and white hair, which filled the 
dark cavern over her forehead. She stood with her hymn book in one hand, 
and beating time with her other hand, she began : — 

" The morning sun shines from the east, 
And spreads his glories in the west. 
All nations with his beams are blest." 

Her voice was high. Her free hand waved vigorously to tell how — 

" Freedom her attendant waits 
To bless the portals of her gates, 
To crown the young and rising States 
With laurels of immortal day. 

" The British yoke, the Gallic chain, 
Was urged upon our necks in vain. 
All haughty tyrants we disdain, 
And shout, Long live Ameri^." 

The last word rang out with a long sound of ca at the end. 



232 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

She stopped, removed her spectacles, and looked down upon Deacon Good- 
win, inquiringly. 

"I declare it's too bad," said the Deacon, "that you have to be the 
Thanksgiving for the hull town. Two or three people have had their own 
heads here about long enough, it's my opinion. If I could have my way,. 
Hannah, we'd not be ruled as we are. I'll see what can be done. Some- 
thin' '11 have to be done, and I '11 do it. 

" Go lang ! " and he laid a long birch stick on the back of the patient beast 
before him, and left Hannah to conclude her devotions among the dead. 

An epidemic of smallpox spread over the towns between the coast and 
Narragansett Bay, and in a neighboring town there was no one to go into the 
pest-house and nurse the sick. Hannah was told of the situation, and it 
touched her heart. 

" I will go," she said. 

" But you have never had the smallpox," said the visitor. 

" It makes no difference. I have a promise in my heart. Pain is nothing 
when it is over, and it is a glorious thing to bear for the sake of others. I shall 
surely live until the Great Thanksgiving. I will go. They need me." 

She gave herself, night and day, to the sufferers, and did not take the 
disease. But she was very old, and when she returned to her cottage, it was 
with exhausted strength. 

To the church steps she went feebly, with each returning Sabbath. Autumn 
came with bountiful harvests. The blue gentians bloomed in the cranberrv 
meadows and by the roadside ; the apples, red and russet, bent down the trees ; 
the cornfields rustled, and the hunter's moon rose in the nightfall. 

The farmers were very busy filling their bursting barns and cribs; but 
Hannah's home was silent. No one remembered to have seen her enter it. 
The curtains were drawn, the door closed. The next Sunday morning she 
did not appear upon the church steps as usual, and some neighbors went to 
the door of the little red house to inquire if she were ill. They rapped, and 
waited for the sound of feet under the withered morning-glory vines, but none 
came. The house seemed tenantless. One of the farmers at length pushed 
open a shutter, and, looking into the room usually occupied by Hannah, turned 
and said : " She lies there on the bed, — she is dead." 

" The dream is ended," said the other. " Poor soul, she was a good woman. 
God has taken her to Himself." 

The window was forced. The worn body was tenderly cared for, and prepa- 
rations were made for the funeral. Her will was found. She had given her 
property to the poor of the town, and requested that she might be buried from 



THE FOLK-SONG FESTIVAL. 235 

the church. The will also contained this strange request: "Since I leave all 
I have to the town, I hope the Selectmen will ask Rev. John Leland to attend 
my funeral, and that the bell may be tolled when my body is taken into the 
church, and rung when it is borne to the grave. I have given my life, and all 
I have of property, to the people of this town. May I ask, as a return for 
this, that the people will, in kindness, grant my last request?" 

The funeral was appointed for the morning of Thanksgiving Day, and a 
messenger was dispatched to Elder John Leland, of Cheshire, the eloquent 
evangelist, who was then in Boston, to ask him if he would conduct the 
services. The tender-hearted old man heard the story of Hannah's life with 
deep sympathy. 

" I will come," said he, " but not to mourn for the dead. She does not need 
our tears. God has cleared her vision, and has taken her to Himself. Let us 
do as she wished. Your town had glorious names among its founders, and 
your church is closed, even though it is the harvest time I shall preach not a 
funeral, but a Thanksgiving sermon, and I hope that every one who has been 
blessed during the year will be there. When the year has made a good harvest, 
and one has made a good life, all men should be thankful." 

The news was received with gladness in the thrifty community, which had 
so long lifted the pagan idols of theology over the religion of the heart and 
life. All the people of the rural towns who could leave their farms, prepared 
to attend the funeral of old Hannah, who sung countre, for in her death they 
had recognized her worth. No event had awakened so much interest for years. 

The name of John Leland was at that time a household word. It lives now 
chiefly in connection with the almost Ambrosian hymn, " The day is past and 
gone," and the story of the great Cheshire Cheese. He was a friend of Madison 
and Jefferson; at one time a member of the Massachusetts General Court, — a 
truly wonderful man in all relations of life. He used to travel any weather, 
praying along the roads, mounting the pulpit singing; always democratic, and 
a friend to all men. 

It was an Indian summer day, calm and clear. The sun grew warm ; and 
the heat dropped the frost-crimsoned leaves in showers. Early in the day 
people began to gather about the church. Most of them were glad that the 
blind day of theological disputation was to be broken by the ringing of the 
old bell. They came from neighboring towns in all kinds of conveyances. 

The old sexton came with a claw hammer, and drew the nails out of the 
door, and dusted the pews, and aired the musty aisles, and tied a bell rope 
again to the bell. The church soon filled with people; afterward, the steps, 
and then the graveyard. The gathering was so great that it was difficult to 
keep a vacant place for poor old Hannah's body. 



2 ,6 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Toll ! The bell smote reproachfully on the glimmering air. Toll ! The 
pine coffin was coming with fringed gentians upon it. Toll ! Every heart 
there felt a moral shrinkage, as the coffin broke its way through the people. 

They set it down at last under the high pulpit, near the deacon's seat. 
But the crowd out of doors was larger than that in the house, and all were 
eager to hear what Elder Leland would have to say. 

"Let us hold the services outside," said the venerable evangelist, "Take 
the body out into the graveyard, and set it down in the middle of the graves 
of those to whom she was always so faithful, and I will preach where she used 
to preach to the birds and to the dead, from the meeting-house steps." 

They bore out the body, and set it down under the great cool trees, where 
the crisp leaves were dropping upon the graves. They opened the lid on the 
calm, sweet, face, where the people on the high ground could see it, and the 
tears of those in whose homes she had been a blessing to the sick and a 
comfort to the dying, fell like rain. Tender and eloquent were the words 
spoken by the white-haired Elder, over that still, dead, untroubled face. 

The old trustees of the church were stirred as they had never been before. 
Soon after the close of the sermon, one of them mounted the steps, with a word 
to say to the people. 

" She has opened these doors with her dead hand," he said. " May they 
never be closed again by the living. The trustees have just had a meeting, 
and have agreed once more to open the house. This is a fitting ending to this 
day of mourning, and of Thanksgiving. Now, let the old bell ring." 

They closed the lid of the coffin forever, and bore the body to the open 
earth. The bell began to ring. The voice of the Elder rose in a sublime 
thanksgiving Psalm, as the bell pealed on, and the grave closed over all that 
was mortal of Hannah, who sang coiintre. 

The people left the grounds, one by one. The struggle was ended. The 
work of this lone, feeble woman was done. She rested at last on the day of 
the Great Thanksgiving, of which she had prophesied. And she had been 
there, and the countre tone of her life had never made sweeter harmony. 

She lies in a grave long neglected ; but should one kneel down beside the 
stone that is sinking slowly into the earth, and peel away the moss, and follow 
the light carving on the blue slate under some quaint pictures of cherubs, one 

might read, — 

Hannah Semple, who sang Countre 
in the Choir, ^Etat. 90. 

The old generation has been gathered to their fathers, but the new genera- 
tion still feels the beneficent influence of that Great Thanksgiving. 




CHAPTER XL 

WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME IN THE STATE 

BUILDINGS. 

Stories of Puget Sound Indians, Selected old Story of "The Devil and Tom 
Walker," A Folk-Lore Story of Old Rhode Island Days- 

IN THE FISHERIES BUILDING. 

E are now walking in the sea," said Mr. Marlowe, as 
the trio moved along the Fisheries Building; "the 
inhabitants of the waters are around us on every 
hand." 

The Fisheries Building was built of everything 
beautiful produced by the sea. It would have 
charmed Ruskin. It was one thousand feet Ion or and two hundred 
wide ; two polygons connected by an arch. It was built of marine 
forms ; and here, for the first time, the visitor might enter as it were 
the regions of the waters and travel anion g- the inhabitants of the 
deep. Japan and Norway led the exhibits, while Massachusetts finely 
presented the industries of Gloucester. 

" I find here," said Mr. Marlowe, " an idea to take into our town 
life; it is shell decorations for lawns and houses." 

He took his note-book and wrote down the things that pleased 
him most which could be so used. 

In the Agricultural Buildinof, Mr. Marlowe found like hints in 
structures built of corn and cobs. 

In the Kansas Building he saw another home art in the wonders 
of taxidermy. 



2 3 8 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



" The Arkansas Building is in the French style," said Mr. Marlowe, 
on entering that beautiful structure. "It is a Folk-Lore Building; 
the settlers of Arkansas were French. The floor is made of native 




KANSAS BUILDING. 



pine ; and, see, there is a fountain of Hot Springs' crystals, a gift of 
the ladies of Hot Springs." 

Here they found a book made of seventy kinds of wood, and Mr. 
Marlowe found in this a new idea for the society at home. 

The California Building was one of the most imposing and self- 
interpreting on the grounds. It was Spanish, and was built after the 
manner of the ancient adobe mission-houses, with belfries of old 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



: 39 



Spanish bells. Here Mr. Marlowe found a beautiful " roof-garden " 
as a feature of note. The exhibits of fruit were a wonder, and led 
one to feel the greatness of the State of beneficent climate. 

In the Connecticut Building Mr. Marlowe found an old settle, 
such as was used for story-telling purposes in colonial times. This 




FLORIDA BUILDING. 



he thought might be reproduced in the furniture of new houses, and 
used for historic narratives and folk-tales, as in the times of the 
Puritans. 

The Florida Building represented Old Fort Marion, and was 
adorned with oalm like bamboos, and overflowed with orange cider. 
Here Mr. Marlowe developed the idea of a home orange party, in 



240 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

which the decorations should be of orange color, the refreshments 
of oranges, with a lecture on different varieties of oranges, to be 
illustrated by serving the fruit as described, and with banjo music and 
log-cabin songs, or the music of Spanish guitars. 

The Idaho House was a log cabin of gems. It had a very curious 
room. Here the rafters were decorated with strings of onions, jerked 
beef, bacon, etc., to recall the days of the pioneers. It gave Mr. 
Marlowe an idea how to furnish a pioneer kitchen for exhibitions. 
In the great Illinois House, costing two hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, Mr. Marlowe found a common-school room of which he made 
note for home service. In the Iowa State Exhibition House Mr. 
Marlowe became greatly interested in the Corn Palace, which adjoined 
the main building, in which corn was enthroned as king. Every- 
thing here was made or covered with corn. He believed that corn 
should be made our national emblem ; and he saw here how to 
decorate a room for corn festivals. 

In the Kentucky Building Mr. Marlowe found a fireplace in which 
a whole log could be burned at once, and a collection of Indian 
implements, such as could be imitated elsewhere. The Michigan 
Building contained a collection of prairie 'grasses which was sugges- 
tive. The Minnesota Building had a lambrequin of shells strung 
by children, and the Nebraska House, a table made of corn. The 
New Hampshire House had a collection of ordinary grasses. The 
Virginia Building had an old-time four-post bedstead, such as could 
be imitated in an antique room. The New York and Pennsylvania 
Buildings were palaces; and the flag-stafT in front of the Washington 
Building was one hundred and seventy-five feet in height. In many 
of the buildings were palms, in many ornaments of corn, and in some 
of shells. 

" Corn and palms are elected here as our national emblems," said 
Mr. Marlowe. " Corn lands and palm lands are we! The two should 
go together. Let us put them side by side in our patriotic decora- 
tions, — the Corn and the Palm ! " 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



243 




ILLINOIS STATE BUILDING. 



The stories told at the Folk-Lore Society at their next gathering 
were interesting. A delegate from Washington related tales of the 
Puget Sound Indians ; and Mr. Marlowe, as a picture of early Boston 
superstitions, read the classic tale, by America's early story-writer, 
entitled, " The Devil and Tom Walker." A Rhode Islander related 
a story which was an historical picture of the early days of his 
own State. 



244 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



PUGET SOUND INDIANS. 

The saddest sight in the streets of the young cities of Puget Sound, is the 
remnant of the great tribes of Indians who once possessed the land. These 
descendants of the ancient forest kings and warriors come wandering from their 
reservations into Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia in blankets and moccasins, in 
yellow paint and rags. 

They crouch down in the shadows of alley-ways and street corners, and 
wonder at all the strange progress that is going on around them. Every 
passer-by reminds them of their inferiority. 

Or, borne into the noisy town on his little Cayuse pony, the dusky pen- 
sioner of a vanishing race ambles his way along, amid crowding vehicles and 
electric cars, and vaguely comprehends that the steam whistle has forever 
drowned the war-whoop of the old forest days. 

Wherever he goes he sees the giant trees, two hundred feet high, with 
trunks so large that a house might be made within them, tumbling around him 
beneath the axe, the blasting powder and fire. Even the stumps vanish as the 
domes and spires and flagstaffs rise. 

It is all going, the romantic and heroic barbarism ; it will soon be gone, 
and become a painter's dream and a poet's legend. 

The old Snohomish tribe still lingers amid the valleys of the snow-crowned 
mountains, as do the Spokanes and the Nez Perces. The tribes of the Walla 
Wallas and Wallulas or Walloas fall like leaves, bequeathing to the system which 
succeeds them only their poetic names. The Yakimas still hold a considerable 
territory, as do the Klickitats. But one fate awaits them all. Their feet 
vanish wherever the white man builds his road. 

The savage traits and evil dispositions of these Indian races have long been 
the subject of sensational writing. Let us speak of what was and is noble in 
them, — as a Schoolcraft or a Longfellow would see them. If the new country 
is filled with legends of their ignorance and barbarism, it is also full of beauti- 
ful stories of their gratitude, fidelity, and benevolence. 

" Why does not the wonderful city of Seattle in some way pension the 
daughter of old Seattle, the chief?" I once asked a wealthy ex-mayor of that 
city. " She is a beggar in the streets." 

" Oh," said the millionnaire, " it would do her no good. She would give it 
all away to her own people. Give her fifty dollars to-day, and she would have 
nothing to-morrow." 

The reply gave me a feeling of respect for poor old Angeline, the rag- 
picking princess of Seattle. 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



2 45 





woman's building. 



Among the homesteading pioneers, there came to the great timber lands a 
New England family by the name, we will say, of Brewster, as it is a good one. 
The young people had a battle with the great pines and firs and the bears, and 
with a clearing. They had a rich aunt in old Massachusetts; and as young 
Brewster was her favorite, she decided to come and make her home with him. 

She was a benevolent old lady, such as are to be found in all the village 
churches of New England. Her first concern, upon arriving in the new country, 
was to find a way to invest a part of her money in missionary enterprises. 

She saw an Indian graveyard in the trees. Then she met some Flatheads, 
and was at once happy in the thought that a special providence had directed 
her here, as a pioneer in a mission field. 

She secured as a first pupil an Indian by the name of Curley. Finding that 
he and his family lived in a tent of skins, she thought that she would build for 



246 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

him a house, and promised him that she would go and visit him when it was 
completed. 

" What kind of a house would you like to have, Curley? " she asked, one day 
after he had been especially teachable. 

" Oh, a white house like the Great Father's at Washington." 
" Aunt Boston " gave Curley one hundred dollars to build a white house, and 
he rode away delighted, on his little Cayuse horse. 

Weeks passed ; Christmas came, and good Aunt Boston thought that she 
would ride over to the reservation and surprise Curley in the new white house, 
which she had not yet seen. The thought greatly pleased her, as Curley had 
told her that he was raising a Cayuse colt as a present for her. 

So she set out on Christmas morning in a mountain wagon. The air was 
clear and warm, for the Puget Sound atmosphere is an almost continuous 
springtime. The tops of the giant firs were, filled with sunlight instead of 
snow. Here and there a deer bounded across the way. 

She came at last to a clearing, and saw the white house. 

There was no mistaking it. Close by was a tent of skins, which she took 
to be the former habitation of Curley. She rode up to the white house. The 
window was open. 

The rattle of the wheels had caused a commotion in the interesting place. 
A pretty Cayuse colt put his head out of the window of the white house, and 
Curley at the same time opened the fold of the tent. 

Aunt Boston was quite outdone in her plan of benevolence. Curley had 
made the white house a stable for her colt, and was as happy as she in his 
plans of benevolence and charity. 

An Episcopal missionary recently told me, to his own disadvantage, the 
following story, which illustrates the same generous trait in the Puget Sound 
Indians : — 

" There once came to the mission station on a visit an old Christian Indian, 
and he continued to make the mission his home. In my early work in the 
territory I had lived with him, and had found him very brotherly and benevo- 
lent. He had shared everything with me. 

" A month or more passed, and as he gave me no hint of departure, and did 
nothing toward the support of himself or the cause, I said to him, — 

" ' Mountain Pine, you have been here two moons ; how much longer do you 
intend to stay? ' 

" ' It may be one week, it may be one month, it may be one year, it may be 

one life.' 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 247 

" ' But, Mountain Pine, the Good Book says that if a man do not work, 
neither shall he eat.' 

" Mountain Pine rose slowly, and drew his blanket around him. He raised 
his arm and pointed to the chapel. 

" ' Do you wah-wah over there? ' 

" ' Yes, you know, Mountain Pine, there is where I worship.' 

" ' Brother, you zvah-wah over there. You came a stranger to me in my 
cabin. I say, " You have half; you may stay one week, you may stay one 
moon, you may stay one year, you may stay one life. I hunt and give you half 
my venison.' I come to your cabin. You say, " How long you stay? " You 
say, " You go work ! " 

" ' You wah-wah over there. You heap wah-wah, but you no good ! ' 

" He drew his blanket cldser around him, and majestically strode out of the 
house, and I never saw Mountain Pine again." 

The favorite chiefs of the early settlers were Seattle and Pat Keanim, of the 
Snoqualmees. Seattle was appointed chief by a territorial governor, but Pat 
Keanim had the heart of his people. He espoused the cause of the pioneers 
and fought for them, and though often distrusted, was true in the dark days of 
the war. He had a poetic and really beautiful face. 

The hop harvest in the Puyallup valley yearly gathers the Indians there, as 
they used to meet, according to the old legend, in the happy valley of the 
Olympic mountains. The harvest begins in August, and lasts a month. 

The days are bright, and at night the moon hangs clear over the waters; 
Working people, young and old, Indians, Chinese, white people, black people, 
every one desiring much money for light work, congregate here. 

All is gay and happy. The nights are festivals. Hither the Indians come 
on Cayuse horses and in canoes. Their boats fill the harbors. And here the 
dying races renew their primitive life. 



THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER 

A FEW miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding 
several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating 
in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful 
dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water's edge, 
into a high ridge, on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense 
size. It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that 
Kidd, the pirate, buried his treasure. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the 



248 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY 




CHINESE THEATRE. 



money in a boat secretly, and at night, to the very foot of the hill. The eleva- 
tion of the place permitted a good look-out to be kept, that no one was at 
hand ; while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the place 
might easily be found again. The old stories add, moreover, that the devil 
presided at the hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship ; but 
this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it 
has been ill gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his 
wealth, — being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there 
hanged for a pirate. 

About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in 
New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived 
near this place a meagre, miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker. He had 
a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 249 

cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid away; a 
hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the new-laid egg. Her 
husband was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and many 
and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been 
common property. They lived in a forlorn-looking house, that stood alone, 
and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin-trees, emblems of 
sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveller 
stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the 
bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely 
covering the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantalized and balked his hunger, 
and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, look piteously at the 
passer-by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of famine. The 
house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom's wife was a tall 
termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice 
was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband ; and his face sometimes 
showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, 
however, to interfere between them : the lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself 
at the horrid clamor and clapper-clawing, eyed the den of discord askance, 
and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy. 

One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighborhood, 
he took what he considered a short cut homewards, through the swamp. Like 
most short cuts, it was an ill-chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown 
with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which 
made it dark at noon-day, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. 
It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where 
the green surface often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black smothering 
mud ; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the 
bull-frog, and the water-snake, and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay 
half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire. 

Tom had long been picking his way cautiously through this treacherous 
forest, — stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots which afforded precarious 
footholds among deep sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a cat, along the pros- 
trate trunks of trees, — startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the 
bittern, or the quacking of a wild duck, rising on the wing from some solitary 
pool. At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground, which ran out like a 
peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the strong- 
holds of the Indians during their wars with the first colonists. Here they had 
thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, 
and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children. Nothing 



250 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

remained of the Indian fort but a few embankments gradually sinking to the 
level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and 
other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and 
hemlocks of the swamp. 

It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort; 
and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Any one but he would have 
felt unwilling to linger in this lonely melancholy place, — for the common 
people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time of the 
Indian wars, when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here, and 
made sacrifices to the Evil Spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be 
troubled with any fears of the kind. 

He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listen- 
ing to the boding cry of the tree-toad, and delving with his walking-staff into 
a mound of black mould at his feet. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, 
his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable 
mould, and lo ! a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it, lay 
before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since 
this death-blow had been given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle 
that had taken place in the last foothold of the Indian warriors. 

" Humph ! " said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the 
dirt from it. 

" Leave that skull alone ! " said a gruff voice. 

Tom lifted up his eyes, and beheld a great black man, seated directly opposite 
him on the stump of a tree. He was exceedfngly surprised, 'having neither 
seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observ- 
ing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither 
negro nor Indian. It is true, he was dressed in a rude half-Indian garb, and 
had a red belt or sash swathed round his body ; but his face was neither black 
nor copper color, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had 
been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse 
black hair, that stood out from his head in all directions, and he bore an axe on 
his shoulder. 

He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes. 

" What are you doing in my grounds?" said the black man, with a hoarse 
growling voice. 

"Your grounds? " said Tom, with a sneer; "no more your grounds than 
mine, — they belong to Deacon Peabody." 

" Deacon Peabody be damned," said the stranger, " as I flatter myself he 
will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his neighbors'. 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME 25 I 

Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring." Tom looked in the 
direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and 
flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and saw that it had been nearly 
hewn through, so that the first high wind was likely to blow it down. On the 
bark of the tree was scored the name of Deacon Peabody. He now looked 
round, and found most of the tall trees marked with the name of some great 
men of the colony, and all more or less scored by the axe. The one on which 
he had been seated, and which had just been hewn down, bore the name of 
Crowninshield ; and he recollected a mighty rich man of that name, who made 
a vulgar display of wealth, which it was whispered he had acquired by 
buccaneering. 

" He 's just ready for burning! " said the black man, with a growl of tri- 
umph. " You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for winter." 

" But what right have you," said Tom, " to cut down Deacon Peabody's 
timber? " 

"The right of prior claim," said the other. "This woodland belonged to 
me long before one of your white-faced Yankee race of rascals put foot upon 
the soil." 

" And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold? " said Tom. 

" Oh, I go by various names. I am the Wild Huntsman in some countries ; 
the Black Miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of 
the Black Woodsman. I am he to whom the red men devoted this spot, and 
now and then roasted a white man by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since 
the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by 
presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists. I am the great 
patron and prompter of slave-dealers, and the grand master of the Salem 
witches." 

" The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not," said Tom, sturdily, 
" you are he commonly called Old Scratch." 

" The name at your service ! " replied the black man, with a half-civil nod. 

Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though 
it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to meet 
with such a singular personage in this wild lonely place, would have shaken 
any man's nerves ; but Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and 
he had lived so long with a termagant wife, that he did not even fear the devil. 

It is said that after this commencement, they had a long and earnest con- 
versation together, as Tom returned homewards. The black man told him of 
great sums of money which had been buried by Kidd the pirate, under the oak- 
trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All these were under his 



252 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

command and protected by his power, so that none could find them but such 
as propitiated his favor. These he offered to place in Tom Walker's reach, 
having conceived an especial kindness for him ; but they were to be had only 
on certain conditions. What these conditions were, may be easily surmised, 
though Tom never disclosed them publicly. They must have been very hard, 
for he required time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles 
where money was in view. When they reached the edge of the swamp, the 
stranger paused. 

" What proof have I that all you have been telling me is true? " said Tom. 

" There is my signature," said the black man, pressing his finger on Tom's 
forehead. So saying, he turned oft" among the thickets of the swamp, and 
seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth, until nothing 
but his head and shoulders could be seen, and so on, until he totally 
disappeared. 

When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it 
were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate. 

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom 
Crowninshield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers, with the 
usual flourish, that " a great man had fallen in Israel." 

Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and 
which was ready for burning. " Let the freebooter roast," said Tom ; " who 
cares ! " He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no 
illusion. 

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence ; but as this was an 
uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened 
at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the 
black man's terms, and secure what would make them wealthy for life. How- 
ever Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was deter- 
mined not to do so to oblige his wife ; so he flatly refused, out of the mere 
spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on the 
subject; but the more she talked, the more resolute was Tom not to be damned 
to please her. At length she determined to drive the bargain on her own 
account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself. Being of the 
same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort toward 
the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent. When she came 
back she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a 
black man whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. 
He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms ; she was to go again 
with a propitiatory offering; but what it was she forbore to say. The next 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 255 

evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden. Tom 
waited and waited for her, but in vain : midnight came, but she did not make 
her appearance; morning, noon, night returned, but still she did not come- 
Tom now grew uneasy for her safety; especially as he found she had carried 
off in her apron the silver tea-pot and spoons, and every portable article of 
value. Another night elapsed, another morning came; but no wife. In a 
word, she was never heard of more. 

What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many pretend- 
ing to know. It is one of those facts that have become confounded by a 
variety of historians. Some assert that she lost her way among the tangled 
mazes of the swamp, and sunk into some pit or slough ; others, more unchari- 
table, hinted that she had eloped with the household booty, and made off to 
some other province ; while others assert that the Tempter had decoyed her 
into a dismal quagmire, on top of which her hat was found lying. In confirma- 
tion of this, it was said a great black man, with an axe on his shoulder, was seen 
late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a 
check apron, with an air of surly triumph. 

The most current and probable story, however, observes that Tom Walker 
grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set out at 
length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer's after- 
noon, he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen. He 
called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The bittern 
alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the bull-frog croaked 
dolefully from a neighboring pool. At length, it is said, just in the brown 
hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his 
attention was attracted by the clamor of carrion crows that were hovering 
about a cypress-tree. He looked, and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron, 
and hanging in the branches of the tree, with a great vulture perched hard by, 
as if keeping watch upon it. He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife's 
apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables. 

"Let us get hold of the property," said he, consolingly to himself, " and we 
will endeavor to do without the woman." 

As he scrambled up the tree, the vulture spread its wide wings, and sailed 
off screaming into the deep shadows of the forest Tom seized the check 
apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it. 

Such, according to the most authentic old story, was all that was to be 
found of Tom's wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man 
as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband ; but though a female 
scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she 



256 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game, however, from 
the part that remained unconquered. Indeed, it is said Tom noticed many 
prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and several handfuls of 
hair, that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse black shock of 
the woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged 
his shoulders as be looked at the signs of a fierce clapper-clawing. " Egad," 
said he to himself, " Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it ! " 

Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property by the loss of his wife; 
for he was a little of a philosopher. He even felt something like gratitude 
toward the Black Woodsman, who he considered had done him a kindness. 
He sought, therefore, to cultivate a further acquaintance with him, but for 
some time without success: the old black legs played shy, for whatever people 
may think, he is not always to be had for calling for ; he knows how to play 
his cards when pretty sure of his game. 

At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the quick, 
and prepared him to agree to anything rather than not gain the promised 
treasure, he met the black man one evening in his usual woodman dress, with 
his axe on his shoulder, sauntering along the edge of the swamp, and humming 
a tune. He affected to receive Tom's advance with great indifference, made 
brief replies, and went on humming his tune. 

By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, and they began to 
haggle about the terms on which the former was to have the pirate's treasure. 
There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally under- 
stood in all cases where the devil grants favors; but there were others about 
which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. He insisted 
that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. 
He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic, that is 
to say, that he should fit out a slave ship. This, however, Tom resolutely re- 
fused ; he was bad enough in all conscience, but the devil himself could not 
tempt him to turn slave-dealer. 

Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it; but 
proposed instead that he should turn usurer, — the devil being extremely 
anxious for the increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar people. 
To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom's taste. 

" You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next month," said the black man. 

" I '11 do it to-morrow, if you wish," said Tom. 

" You shall lend money at two per cent, a month." 

" Egad, T '11 charge four! " replied Tom Walker. 

"You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive the merchant to bank- 
ruptcy — " 






WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



2 57 



•' I '11 drive him to the devil," cried Tom, eagerly. 

" You are the usurer for my money ! " said the black legs, with delight. 
" When will you want the rhino? " 

" This very night." 

" Done ! " said the devil. 

" Done ! " said Tom Walker. So they shook hands, and struck a bargain. 

A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting- 
house in Boston. His reputation for a ready moneyed man, who would lend 
money out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remem- 
bers the days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It 
was a time of paper credit. The country had been deluged with government 
bills; the famous Land Bank had been established; there had been a rage 
for speculation ; the people had run mad with schemes for new settlements, 
and for building cities in the wilderness ; land-jobbers went about with maps 
of grants, and townships, and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which 
everybody was ready to purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever 
which breaks out every now and then in the country, had raged to an alarming 
degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. 
As usual, the fever had subsided ; the dream had gone off, — and the imagi- 
nary fortunes with it, — the patients were left in doleful plight, and the whole 
country resounded with the consequent cry of " hard times." 

At this propitious time of public distress did Tom Walker set up as a 
usurer in Boston. His door was soon thronged with customers. The needy 
and the adventurous, the gambling speculator, the dreaming land-jobber, the 
thriftless tradesman, the merchant with cracked credit, — in short, every one 
driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices, — hurried to 
Tom Walker. Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and he acted 
like " a friend in need," — that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good 
security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his 
terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages, gradually squeezed his customers 
closer and closer, and sent them at length dry as a sponge from his door. 

In this way he made money hand over hand, became a rich and mighty 
man, and exalted his cocked hat upon 'Change. He built himself a vast house 
out of ostentation, but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished 
out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fulness of his vain-glory, 
though he nearly starved the horses which drew it ; and as the ungreased 
wheels groaned and screeched on the axle-trees, you would have thought you 
heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing. 

17 



258 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the 
good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. 
He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and 
set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became, therefore, 
all of a sudden, a violent church-goer. He prayed loudly and strenuously, as 
if Heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell 
when he had sinned most during the week, by the clamor of his Sunday 
devotion. The quiet Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly travel- 
ling Zionward, were struck with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly 
outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in 
religious as in money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his 
neighbors, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became 
a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the expediency of 
reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a word, Tom's zeal 
became as notorious as his riches. 

Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, Tom had a lurking 
dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. That he might not be taken 
unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a small Bible in his coat pocket. 
He had also a great folio Bible on his counting-house desk, and would frequently 
be found reading it when people called on business; on such occasions he 
would lay his green spectacles on the book to mark the place, while he turned 
around to drive some usurious bargain. 

Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his old days, and that, 
fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled, and bridled, 
and buried with his feet uppermost ; because he supposed that at the last day 
the world would be turned upside down, — in which case he should find his 
horse standing ready for mounting, and he was determined at the worst to give 
his old friend a run for it. This, however, is probably a mere old wives' fable. 
If he really did take such a precaution, it was totally superfluous ; at least so 
says the authentic old legend, which closes his story in the following manner: 

On one hot afternoon in the dog-days, just as a terrible black thunder-gust was 
coming up, Tom sat in his counting-house in his white linen cap and India silk 
morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he 
would complete the ruin of an unlucky land-speculator, for whom he had pro- 
fessed the greatest friendship. The poor land-jobber begged him to grant a 
few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated, and refused 
another day. 

" My family will be ruined, and brought upon the parish," said the land- 
jobber. 




MASONIC TEMPLE. 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 26 1 

" Charity begins at home," replied Tom ; " I must take care of myself in 
these hard times." 

" You have made so much money out of me," said the speculator. 

Tom lost his patience and his piety. " The devil take me," said he, " if I 
have made a farthing ! " 

Just then there were three loud knocks at the street door. He stepped out 
to see who was there. A black man was holding a black horse, which neighed 
and stamped with impatience. 

" Tom, you 're come for ! " said the black fellow, gruffly. Tom shrunk back, 
but too late. He had left his little Bible at the bottom of his coat pocket, and 
his big Bible on the desk, buried under the mortgage he was about to foreclose. 
Never was sinner taken more unawares. The black man whisked him like a 
child astride the horse, and away he galloped in the midst of a thunder-storm. 
The clerks stuck their pens behind their ears, and stared after him from the 
windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing down the streets, his white cap 
bobbing up and down, his morning-gown fluttering in the wind, and his steed 
striking fire out of the pavement at every bound. When the clerks turned to 
look for the black man he had disappeared. 

Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman who 
lived on the borders of the swamp, reported that in the height of the thunder- 
gust he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and a howling along fhe road, and 
that when he ran to the window he just caught sight of a figure, such as I have 
described, on a horse that galloped like mad across the fields, over the hills and 
down into the black hemlock swamp toward the old Indian fort ; and that 
shortly after a thunder-bolt fell in that direction, which seemed to set the 
whole forest in a blaze. 

The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, 
but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the 
devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony, that they 
were not so much horror-struck as might have been expected. Trustees were 
appointed to take charge of Tom's effects. There was nothing, however, to 
administer upon. On searching his coffers, all his bonds and mortgages were 
found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and silver, his iron chest was filled 
with chips and shavings ; two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half- 
starved horses ; and the very next day his great house took fire and was burnt 
to the ground. 

Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all griping 
money-brokers lay this to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The 
very hole under the oak-trees, from whence he dug Kidd's money, is to be seen 



262 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

to this day ; and the neighboring swamp and old Indian fort is often haunted 
in stormy nights by a figure on horseback, in a morning-gown and white cap, 
which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the usurer. In fact, the story has 
resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that popular saying, prevalent 
throughout New England, of " The Devil and Tom Walker." 



THE OLD SMOKE CHAMBER. 

A PICTURE OF THE MOUNT HOPE LANDS, AND THEIR LEGENDS. 

That the old Royall house was haunted had long been a legend in the 
Mount Hope lands. Nearly all of the old houses in this part of New England 
were haunted, or supposed to be. A house without its ghost lore would have 
been regarded in old colony days as a place of but little interest. Did not evil 
spirits tempt all good people, and frighten all wrong-doers? And what a color- 
less family that must have been to have been wholly neglected by the ghost- 
world ! All old women had their ghost-stories, and not a few claimed that the 
" Prince of the Power of the Air " had made them, or some of their antique 
relatives, a special visit. There seems to have been few good spirits in those 
lively and dramatic old times. The Puritan imagination had no fairy-land, or 
Hebraic or mediaeval angels. The telling of ghost-stories to children was held 
to be a very wholesome and pious occupation, but the relation of fairy tales 
would have been a sin. No historian has overdrawn these colonial supersti- 
tions. Witches walked the air, the dead did not sleep well nights, but were 
ever getting up out of their graves and returning to their old places to warn 
the living. The spirit-world of darkness was an ever-present reality, a nightly 
terror, and there were no angel chariots in the clouds, nor angel feet in the ways 
of sorrow and death. New England was a goblin-land. Going to bed in some 
distant chamber in an old oak house was a specially perilous journey for the 
young Puritan to make ; one could never tell whether one's dead grandfather 
was in his grave at that hour or not. Young folks with disturbed consciences 
went to bed with alacrity, and drew the sheets over their heads quickly, in Cotton 
Mather's day. 

The Mount Hope lands ! How beautiful they were and are ! But the old 
houses on them were filled with dark superstitions. This is not strange, for the 
Mount Hope lands had been the fields of great events. Few places in America 
had such a romantic history. 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 263 

" Here once red warriors were wont to assemble, 
Here lurid and ghostly their council fires shone, 
Here the word of the chief made the ancient tribes tremble, 
And the war-whoop rung out from Pometacom's throne. 

"Gone, gone are the tribes from the scenes that they cherished, 
The forests no longer encompass the tide, 
The happy flocks sleep where Pometacom perished, 
And wanders the heron where Wetamoo died. 

"And here on this ocean mound silently lying, 
Where tidal waves falling the far seas intone, 
Where the sail on the bay like the osprey is flying, 
The olden tribes rest from their warfare unknown. 

" The mild air of spring-time embeds them in flowers, 
The orioles here from the tropics return, 
The grain ripens on them in midsummer's hours, 
And mellowing falls by the river sides burn." 

If the archaeologists may be trusted, here came Leif Ericson in a. d. iooo, 
and wintered in Mount Hope Bay. A rock is still shown at a place called the 
Narrows, on which is a partly effaced inscription, which is claimed to have 
been made by the Northmen. On the Mount Hope lands, it is probable, was 
the first temporary settlement ever made in the territory which is now the 
United States. This was nearly five hundred years before the Columbian 
discovery. Here lived Massasoit, whose great heart protected the infant 
colony of Plymouth for forty or more years. Massasoit was a poet by nature ; 
he loved inspiring scenery, and he made the glacier-carved slope of land over- 
hanging these bright waterways to the sea his royal seat. On this neck of 
land, between the Narragansett and the Mount Hope bays, were his three 
royal villages, or places of lodges, each hard by a living spring of water. There 
was passed the boyhood of Alexander (Wamsutta) and King Philip (Pometa- 
com). Here the forests were full of game, the shores of shell-fish, and the bays 
were rich fishing-fields for the white and airy birch canoes. There came young 
John Hampden, the English patriot and commoner, already inspired to defend 
popular rights against kingly power. He made the visit with Edward Winslow, 
and found Massasoit at Sowams (now Warren, Rhode Island), one of the three 
royal villages. The chief was sick, and Hampden helped make broth for him, 
and to nurse him, and under his and Winslow's care the old chief recovered ; 
and it was Indian gratitude for the kindly offices of these two wonderful men 
that made him a lifelong friend to the growing colonies. The scene of John 



264 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Hampden in the lodge of Massasoit by the living spring of Sowams, which may 
still be seen close to the Warren River, is worthy of a poet or painter. May it 
one day find both ! Here Captain Kidd, of ballad fame, was supposed to have 
hidden treasure. Here came Roger Williams, in exile, and met in the lodge 
of Massasoit — what he had not found at Salem — the spirit of a Christian 
hospitality. It was here his mind was active in evolving the great principles 
of religious liberty that have emancipated the human conscience from the rule 
of state throughout the world. There should be a monument to Massasoit on 
the Mount Hope lands ; no chieftain ever better deserved a shaft of fame. 
Here were King Philip's war-dances, and here the romantic Wetamoo came to 
attend them, crossing the starlit bay in her white canoe. Here Philip was killed, 
returning a fugitive to the ancient burying-ground of his race, and the warrior- 
queen Wetamoo was drowned, with her heart in vain longing for the beautiful 
hills that on either side of the bay met her eyes. Here Washington came to rest 
in 1793, and was the guest of William Bradford, then a United States Senator, 
who lived at the Mount. The descendants of Governor Bradford used to relate 
how the two statesmen, clad in " black velvet, with ruffles about their wrists 
and at their bosoms, and with powdered hair, promenaded the piazza, and talked 
together hour after hour." 

Leif Encson, Massasoit, John Hampden, Roger Williams, Washington — 
what an array of great names and noble associations ! We may well claim that 
there are few spots on American soil which are so grand in historic events of 
a highly poetic coloring as the old Mount Hope lands. As to lesser men, we 
have not space for more than an allusion : Church, the Indian-fighter, of cruel 
memory, the heroes of the " Gaspee," and the old privateers. Lafayette was 
quartered here, and General Burnside here made his home on the borders of 
the beautiful hills after the Union war. In the prosperous colonial years before 
the Revolution there came to live on the Mount Hope lands in summer some 
grand families whom the world has almost forgotten. Among them were the 
Vassals of Boston, and the Royalls, also rich Boston people, whose home was 
at the Mount. These people were royalists, and fled from the country at the 
beginning of the war, and their estates were confiscated. The Mount Hope 
farm of the Royalls was among the confiscated estates. These people fled to 
the Windward Islands. The old Vassal tomb may still be seen in Cambridge 
churchyard, Massachusetts, near Harvard College. Of course the confiscated 
estate of the Royalls became haunted after the flight of its stately owners. The 
white ghost of Penelope Royall is supposed never to have left the romantic 
farms, but to have remained to terrify whomsoever might live upon these 
enchanted regions of the rightful territories of good King George. In her 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



26: 




JAPANESE HO-O-DEN. 



happy days this queenly woman used to ride in her high chariot through 
Bristol, greatly to the admiration of the Wardwells, the Bosworths, the Glad- 
dings, the Churches, the Byfields, and the well-to-do townspeople of the cool 
old port. The white sail that bore the Royalls drifted over the tropic seas, but 
not in imagination the ghostly form and robes of Penelope Royall. They stayed 
to affright the rebels, and to uphold the rights and the dignities of the Crown, 
All disloyal Bristol could not arrest the spirit of Penelope, which seems to have 
delighted in the freedom denied to the royalists in the flesh. She was a maiden 
lady, and a more stately person than either Anna or Priscilla Royall, the old 
royalist's first and second wives. She loved the Mount Hope lands, and 
especially Mount Hope, and used often to visit the white ridge overlooking the 
bays, and gaze over the glittering waterways and the green expanse of Rhode 



2 66 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Island, where Bishop Berkeley is said to have made his immortal prophecy. 
She died in the old house, and was buried near it. 

It was near the close of the last century that Prudence VVardwell, a rich 
spinster, came to live on the old Royall farm on the Mount Hope lands. The 
house which she occupied was noted for its great chimney. All the old Bristol 
houses had enormous chimneys with great fireplaces. One of these chimneys, 
it has been said, would furnish sufficient material to build a modern cottage. 
Several of them once stood like monuments, after the houses they had warmed 
were gone; and cattle, in the winter, would sometimes find a shelter in their 
giant fireplaces. 

Prudence Wardwell — "Aunt Prudence," as she was known — brought to 
the great oak mansion a bound boy by the name of Peter Fayerweather. It had 
been her wish to live as nearly alone as possible, with but a single protector, 
and for this solitary guardian and sentinel she had chosen Peter. He was a 
tall, awkward lad, with great eyes and a shambling gait ; but Aunt Prudence 
believed him to be honest, and she did not want a " handsome man " on the 
place. Peter was not handsome. Peter had objected to going to the Mount on 
account of the ghost folk there. His large eyes and large ears seemed to grow 
as he listened to the old tales of superstition. He had heard again and again 
with terror the awful tale of Captain Kidd : how that recreant son of the old 
Scottish minister and martyr had gone forth on the high seas to destroy pirates, 
and had turned pirate himself ; how he had sunk his good father's Bible " in the 
sand," and had murdered William Moore, "as he sailed, as he sailed." 

" And left him in his gore, 
As he sailed." 

The old pirate was said to come back to the Mount Hope lands on still 
moonlight nights, to see if any had found his buried treasures. None had. 
One frightened Bristoller had met the old captain carrying his head like a 
bundle under his arm. The old pirate was evidently in a hurry; if not, the 
good man who met him most certainly was after the strange vision. 

Peter Fayerweather had no wish to see stately Penelope Royall or dark- 
visaged Captain Kidd on moonlit nights, or any other nights, or any ghost 
folks who did such odd things as to take off their heads and carry them under 
their arms. So, of all places, he begged Aunt Prudence not to take him to the 
solemn and lonely old oak house on the Mount. But Aunt Prudence did not 
fear ghosts. She " trusted in the Lord," as she said, against any wandering 
visitors from another world. She was afraid of robbers, and it was on this 
account that she had secured the protective services of the giant Peter, who 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 26 J 

would have regarded a robber on any dark night as a most welcome friend. 
So the two came to the grand old house, Aunt Prudence fearing only robbers, 
and young Peter only ghosts. 

" If you will protect me from robbers," said the solitary old lady to Peter, on 
the day of their arrival, " I will protect you from spirits. What do you say, 
Peter ? " 

" Aunt Prudence," said Peter, " I do not fear no mortal flesh, true as 
preachin'. Look there, and there." 

He waved his great arms about like a windmill, and swung them round and 
round, greatly to the old lady's admiration. 

" I have great confidence in you, Peter ; I made a good choice when I took 
you. Peter. Do it again." 

Peter swung his great arms again round and round like a wheel. Aunt 
Prudence's sense of security became very firm. 

" That will do, Peter. If you should ever see a ghost, you call me ; and if I 
should ever see a man, I will call you." 

" Heaven forbid that I should ever see a ghost ! " said Peter ; " it would just 
kill me dead, true as preachin'." 

The summer passed ; the apples reddened in the shadowy orchards, and the 
frosts dropped the walnuts on the light beds of crimson leaves. The orioles 
went, and the ospreys. The beautiful Indian summer came and burned and 
faded. November, the month of shadows, came, and a coolness fell from the 
steel sky over the bay, and soon the light snow-crystals began to fall. No 
ghosts were seen in or about the old house ; no robbers. Peter lost his fears, 
and Aunt Prudence became full of confidence, and the two were as happy as 
such a solitary life could make them. Aunt Prudence, at least, seemed perfectly 
happy and contented. 

There was in the great chimney an odd receptacle, once common to such 
chimneys, but now almost forgotten even in England, known as the smoke 
chimney. The door to it, which was iron, opened in this old house into one 
of the upper rooms. The chamber consisted of iron bars on which fresh hams 
were stored in the fall, and through which the smoke passed from one of the 
lower fireplaces. It was in reality a smoke-house in the chimney ; a place to 
smoke meats, in the days when such smoked meats were regarded as a greater 
luxury than now. Peter Fayerweather had not been slow to discover this 
fortress-like smoke chamber. Peter was not what would be called bright, but 
a bright idea illumined his dull face when he first opened the iron door. 

" Ghosts ? Ghosts ? " he said to himself. " If I ever should — I know what 
I would do if I ever should — Nothing could ever get through that iron door, 
true as preachin'. If I ever should — " 



2 68 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

A part of the predicate to Peter's subjunctive sentence was wanting, but 
that a very helpful idea had come to him was evident from his luminous face. 
He had formed a very definite plan of security " if he ever should — " 

Aunt Prudence too, in a careful survey of the premises, had been struck 
with the appearance of security and seclusion of the old smoke chamber. She 
too had examined it alone; and as sympathetic minds by a kind of telegraphy 
express themselves in like phrases, she also said : — 

" If I ever should — No robber would think of such a place as that, any- 
how. I will hang up a quilt over the iron door, and if I ever should — If 
I ever should — eh, well, if I ever should — I will." 

She too turned away from the dungeon-like place with a face full of anima- 
tion and confidence. Certainly if Peter " ever should," or if Aunt Prudence 
" ever should," the old smoke chamber would be a very desirable and con- 
venient seclusion. Now, Peter thought of seclusion only in the case of a ghost, 
and Aunt Prudence only in case that an unknown man of very selfish propen- 
sities should " break into the house ; " and each evidently had received a sense 
of security on a careful inspection of the old smoke chamber. But neither made 
a confidant of what the other would do under certain alarming circumstances. 

Peter, like most cowardly people who recover a sense of security, became 
suddenly very bold. He used to visit Bristol evenings, and return late, greatly 
to Aunt Prudence's anxiety. It was the time of the once famous Episcopal and 
Methodist Episcopal revivals, and Peter claimed that he went to attend the 
meetings, which were the exciting topics of the old port and of the State. 
Aunt Prudence, who was a strict Calvinist, was not deeply in sympathy with 
these phenomenal meetings, which were called the " New Light Stir." She 
advised Peter to " read his Bible at home." But he still felt the necessity of 
going elsewhere for the interpretation of that good book, and so, to use his own 
expression, he continued to " follow up " the meetings. 

Aunt Prudence's patience at thus being left alone during the long winter 
evenings at last came to an end. 

"Peter," she said, one morning after Peter had attended a meeting that had 
held very late, " are you never afraid of meeting apparitions on your way home 
nights ? Suppose you should — what would you do ? " 

Peter thought of the old smoke chamber, but that would not serve him in 
such a case. He knew Aunt Prudence's purpose in making these appalling 
suggestions. He was not a very politic boy, but he was quite equal to the 
situation on this particular occasion. 

" I would call for yon, Aunt. You say that you are not afraid of 'em." 

Aunt Prudence felt flattered, but she still recalled amid her feeling of satis- 
faction that she must not be left alone. 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 269 

"But, Peter, I would hate to see the ghost of Captain Kidd, or to see any 
of the old Indian apparitions. Don't you know, Peter, that Mount Hope is a 
great Indian graveyard ? I would not like to meet old Penelope Royall all in 
white going about in the wind ; would you, Peter ? It would be awful ; now 
would n't it, Peter ? " 

Peter's great eyes and ears began to grow. His old nervous fears were 
coming back again, but he still coveted the freedom of his evenings. 

"Aunt," he said at last, very thoughtfully, "where do you suppose old 
Penelope Royall went when she died ? " 

" To heaven, I hope, Peter, even if she was a royalist." 

" Then why don't she stay there ? What would she want to be wanderin' 
about in the wind in cold nights for?" 

"For vengeance," said Aunt, in an annoyed tone. 

" For vengeance ? " said Peter. " I should n't think a woman after she had 
gone to heaven would have any more wicked feelings like that. I don't believe 
she wanders about in the wind with thin clothes on anyway. Now say, do you, 
Aunt ? Do you really think so ? They dress comfortable up there. It don't 
stand to reason, true as preachin' ; now does it?" 

Aunt felt the force of Peter's argument. In fact, Peter was expressing her 
own firm convictions about such matters. 

" But Captain Kidd, Peter, he was a dreadful man ; I don't think he has 
gone to heaven." 

" Where did he go, Aunt ? " 

Aunt Prudence replied with spirit and emphasis, — 

" He went, Peter, where all wicked people go, — -to the kingdom of dark- 
ness, where he is shut up for ever and ever. There now ! " 

Aunt Prudence was " clearing away the table," as she called her morning 
work, when she uttered these startling and decisive words. She looked steadily 
at Peter, and felt that she had answered him and silenced him. She felt a kind 
of triumph in the pause that followed, and lifted her spectacles as though to say, 
" What do you think of that ? " 

" But, Aunt Prudence — " 

" But what, Peter ? This is a very alarming subject." 

" But who let him out ? " 

" Oh, Peter, Peter ! You are becoming an awful boy. I always knew that 
those Methodist free salvation meetings would do you no good. You go right 
out to the wood-pile, and bring me in an armful of wood. You have no sense 
of theology, anyway. You are a poor daft fellow. ' Who let him out ? ' Did 
I ever ! " 



270 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Peter went out, muttering that he did n't " see how people can be shut up 
forever in another world, and be wandering about this world at the same time. 
It don't stand to reason, nohow, true as preachin'." 

But although Peter's reasoning seemed convincing, it did not quiet his 
superstitious fears. Whenever his conscience became a little disturbed, the 
picture of tall Penelope Royall wandering about in the wind "all in white" 
was before him. Even grim old Captain Kidd was not such an alarming object 
to his fancy as that. Captain Kidd was a man, and he felt sure that he would 
let him alone, if he did not trouble the buried treasure, but old Penelope Royall 
— she was a woman. 



The Mount Hope lands were full of Indian stories, which were founded on 
tricks, and even worse stories of those whose wits cheated the devil out of 
his dues, when their grasping souls had bargained with the latter. Peter 
thought of these. There was one story that suggested to him that wit is equal 
to most conditions of life. It was a red settle story, but became a poem : — 

" Among Rhode Island's early sons 
Was one whose orchards fair 
By plenteous and well-flavored fruit, 
Rewarded all his care. 

" For household use they store.d the best, 
And all the rest, conveyed 
To neighboring mill, were ground and pressed 
And into cider made. 

" The wandering Indian oft partook 
The generous farmer's cheer ; 
He liked his food, but better still 
His cider fine and clear. 

" And as he quaffed the pleasant draught 
The kitchen fire before, 
He longed for some to carry home, 
And asked for more and more. 

" The farmer saw a basket new, 
Beside the Indian bold, 
And smiling said, ' I '11 give to you 
As much as that will hold.' 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 27 1 



" Both laughed, for how could liquid thing 
Within a basket stay ? 
But yet, the jest unanswering, 
The Indian went his way. 

" When next from rest the farmers sprung 
So very cold the morn, 
The icicles like diamonds hung 
On every eping and thorn. 

" The brook that babbled by his door 
Was deep, and clear, and strong, 
And yet unfettered by the frost, 
Leaped merrily along. 

" The self-same Indian by this brook 
The astonished farmer sees ; 
He laid his basket in the stream, 
Then hung it up to freeze. 

" And by this process oft renewed, 
The basket soon became 
A well-glazed vessel, tight and good, 
Of most capacious frame. 

" The door he entered speedily, 

And claimed the promised boon ; 
The farmer laughed heartily, 
Fulfilled his promise soon. 

" Up to the basket's brim he saw 
The sparkling cider rise, 
And to rejoice his absent squaw, 
He bore away the prize. 

" Long lived the good man at the farm, 
The house is standing still, 
And still leaps merrily along 
The much diminished rill. 

" And his descendants still remain, 
And tell to those who ask it, 
The story they have often heard 
About the Indian's basket." 



A wonderful reformation seemed to come over Peter. He began to stay at 
home, and go to bed very early, often as early as seven o'clock, — or at least he 
seemed to do these sober things. Aunt Prudence had gone to the door of his 



272 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

room' once or twice after his early retiring, but had found it locked, and she 
had been unable to awake him, he " slept so sound." " Boys do," she said. 

"Peter," she said one morning, " tell me the truth, now ; did n't you hear 
me when I pounded and pounded on the door last night? " 

" No, Aunt Prudence, true as preachin' I did not." And he did not. 

The truth was that poor Peter had fallen from his integrity, even in these 
times of the great revivals. He had discovered that the great hall window was 
as hand) r as a door, and that he had only to leave it unfastened to return to the 
house at any time of the night without disturbing the sound slumbers of good 
Aunt Prudence. He was careful in taking this liberty to first lock his own 
room. These were wicked ways, it is true, and very bold ones for a quiet 
youth, and quite inconsistent with meeting-going habits. But the meetings at 
this period were wonderfully dramatic ; everybody talked about them, and 
Peter's curiosity quite overcame his moral sense. 

The holidays were at hand. Thanksgiving was Aunt Prudence's great 
annual festival, her Feast of Tabernacles ; she made little account of Christmas, 
which, she told Peter, was a mere " relic of the Pope and the Dragon," and 
which he associated with an old picture in the "Pilgrim's Progress." 

Watch Night was the great annual occasion of the old Bristol Methodists. 
It took place on New Year's Eve, when a great assembly used to meet to sing 
the old VVesleyan Watch Night hymns, written by Wesley for the Old London 
Foundry, and to watch " the old year out and the new year in." The services 
of the Presiding Elder were sometimes secured, for this memorable night, and if 
so, a " Love Feast " was held, and a multitude told their experiences, amid 
triumphant responses, ecstatic refrains, and sometimes strange exhibitions of 
trance, or of " losing one's strength," as the old phenomena were called. 

Christmas was the Episcopal festival, and the Episcopal Church in Bristol 
was unlike any other at that time. It followed the revival methods of White- 
field and Lady Huntingdon. Christmas Eve was an occasion of universal 
charity. The poor were the guests of the church, and were entertained like 
princes. Peter well understood all these festivals, and he resolved to attend them 
all, — the old Orthodox church's Thanksgiving, the Episcopal festival, and the 
Methodists' solemn jubilee on New Year's Eve. There was nothing sectarian 
about him. It was also his intention not to disturb the mind of Aunt Prudence 
about these matters, — the easy hall window would make it unnecessary. 

Thanksgiving passed — it fell late this year; December came in mildly, as 
though the bright days were loath to go. The stillness before the winter 
storms filled the air. The withered grasses were silent now, without the voice 
of insect or bird. A white gull sometimes cleaved the still gray air, and the 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 275 

wild cry of the shore birds was sometimes heard. The nights were silvery and 
cold. The Mount Hope Bay and the Pocassett Hills in the frosty moonlight 
recalled the silence and melancholy fate of that ancient race which slumbered 
in the browned fields, Pometacom's cliff and spring. The night air seemed 
peopled with shadows of painted chiefs and spectral armies forever gone. The 
river weeds were dead, and encased in a thin sheet of ice in the early mornings. 
Brown leaves still hung on the oaks, and red leaves of ivy on the long walls. 
Husking was over, and the yellow cones of the stalks of corn fodder glimmered 
on every farm. The fishing-boats were hauled upon the shore; everything — 
the sky, the blue bay, the fields, the working-men — seemed waiting for the 
coming of winter. The mild days grew shorter and shorter ; the tall candles 
burned lower and lower each evening ; the nights were glorious, and Christmas 
Eve came, rung in by the resonant bell of good St. Michael's. 

Aunt Prudence had resolved to depart from the Orthodox customs on this 
special year, and to make Peter a Christmas present. " He has become such 
a good boy of late," she reasoned, " and so steady. Every one else is giving 
presents, and he ought to be rewarded." She planned to fill a bag with good 
things for him, after the manner of the bountiful bag, and to hang it on his 
bedroom door on Christmas Eve. He would, as she thought, find it in the 
morning, and it would be a great surprise to him. It certainly would. She 
made the bag, purchased some sweetmeats for it, and began to fill it with useful 
articles. She knit for it a "comforter," as a neck-scarf was called, several pairs 
of stockings, some " galluses," and secured for it various other useful things, 
among them " Hervey's Meditations," " Young's Night Thoughts," and " The 
Fool of Quality," all famous books in those sober days, and "good readin'." 

When the bag was nearly full it occurred to her that she ought to knit for it 
a pair of mittens. This happy thought, however, did not occur to her until the 
day before Christmas. Aunt Prudence was a rapid knitter. The needles flew 
under her skilled fingers so swiftly as to look like mere glimmers. "I can 
finish the mittens before eleven o'clock to-night," she said to herself, " and then 
the bag will be all complete. I had as lief sit up late to-night as not, the nights 
are so long now." 

Peter retired early that evening 

"Going?" said Aunt Prudence as he left the room with his candle. " You 
seem dreadful sleepy of late. Well, that 's all right, I suppose. Boys do when 
they're growing. Don't forget to say your prayers, Peter. You've a great 
deal to be thankful for. Good-night, Peter. The Lord bless ye ! " 

Peter closed the door on receiving this serene benediction. 

" He 's such a steady boy ! " said the good woman, as she resumed her 



276 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

knitting. " He sha' n't lose anything by it, either. Any boy will be steady if 
he is brought up right. There 's the trouble, people do not bring their children 
up right." Her needles flew. It was inspiring to recall her great success in 
training Peter. 

It was a still night. There was a faint moon, and the stars glimmered thick 
in the cloudless sky. Aunt Prudence looked out of the window at times, saw 
the still fields and bare trees, and thought of the past. The Mount seemed 
haunted — it always does on calm winter nights. Not by Leif, or Kidd, or the 
Royalls, or by Indian fighters, or Revolutionary heroes, or statesmen, but by 
that vanished and mysterious race whose forest capital was here, and whose 
arrow-heads still fill the fields and sand. 

At nine the old Bristol bell rang out on the clear air. 

" I shall have the work all done by ten," said Aunt Prudence, and her needles 
flew again. She was very happy. She got up and looked out of the window 
for the tenth time — ghost-land. 

The hands on the old English clock pointed to ten. The work was done, 
and Aunt Prudence drew the top of the bag together, and pinned upon the tape 
handle a sheet of paper, on which was written, 

" Peter Fayerweather, a Present." 

It was half-past ten before Aunt Prudence opened the door to go with the 
bag bountiful to the door of Peter's room. As she did so she thought that 
she heard a noise in the hall. She stepped back and listened with a beating 
heart. She surely heard the hall window close, and a careful step in the hall. 
Her heart bounded, and she gasped for breath ; she had long had a presentiment 
of this danger. 

She locked her door at once, withdrew the key, and kneeled down on the 
rug and looked through the key-hole very cautiously. There was only a faint 
moon and star light in the hall, but she saw the shadow of a tall man pass, and 
heard a dull step move in the direction of Peter's room. Her house had been 
entered, surely ; the expected event had really come. What should she do ? 

She stepped into her bedroom, which opened out of her sitting-room, 
where she had been knitting, and sunk down upon the white bed, and drew the 
bed-curtains. She would have groaned, but she dared not. Here she lay and 
trembled till the old clock struck eleven, the strokes sounding like a warning 
through the hollow rooms. 

She must alarm Peter. How? Suppose she were to meet the robber in 
the hall ? Her nervous system was so shaken that she felt that she could not 
be quiet any longer. She must do something, at any event. She arose, put 



WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 



277 



aside the bed-curtains, drew from the bed the white counterpane, put it over 
her head like a great shawl, wrapped it around her, and going into the sitting- 
room, took the almost extinct candle, and unlocked the door and stepped 
cautiously into the hall. If ever a mortal looked like the traditional spectre, 
Aunt Prudence did then. 




CEYLON BUILDING. 



The hall was empty; all was still. The grim old portraits were there — 
like shadow people they were all. 

She left the sitting-room door open, and moved silently and cautiously along 
toward Peter's room. She tried Peter's door. A great sense of relief came to 
her ; it was unlocked. She opened it slowly, but a draught blew out the light. 
Terrified at this, she glided to Peter's bed and seized the boy by the hair, 
gasping, " Peter, Peter, there's a man in the house ! Get up, get up ! there 's 



278 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

a man in the house ! " She shook him with a nervous energy, and repeated in 
stage-like whispers the words. She then vanished out of the room. 

Peter awoke at the first touch of the rude hand, and his heart seemed to 
stop, and his blood to turn to frozen streams, as he saw an awful white spectre 
standing over his bed, and felt its bony fingers in his hair. Penelope flashed 
upon him. It surely was the ghost of Penelope; she had got away from the 
other world this time, surely, despite his reason and philosophy. He looked 
around wildly, saw the shadow of the old ox-saddle that adorned this room as 
a curiosity, — and Penelope, awful Penelope. 

Penelope's final shake of his great shoulders nearly put a period to his 
unromantic history. A chill like death came over him, and he fully believed 
that his last moments had come. The gasped words, " There 's a man in the 
house — get up ! " were something of a relief. " A man ! " If he would only 
appear! Then he beheld the unearthly white figure vanish through the door. 
It surely was Penelope. She had gone ; and oh, if the man, if any man, would 
come ! 

He lay petrified for a moment, and then thought of the old smoke chamber. 
His decision was immediate. He leaped up, drew the dark patchwork cover- 
lid around him, and darted upstairs. Past loom, hatchel, and spinning-wheel, 
he made his way to the iron door, leaped into the smoke chamber, closed the 
door behind him, and sank down in a heap, with a most decided resolution to 
leave the house in the morning forever, " true as preachin'." He drew the 
industrial coverlid around him, leaving only an opening for his eyes. 

Aunt Prudence went back to her room, and locked the door tremblingly, 
and waited for Peter's step. But no Peter came. Her suspense grew unbear- 
able again. Suddenly she too thought of the old smoke chamber, and drawing 
her ghostly robe again around her, she went into the hall, and silently and very 
cautiously made her dark way up the stairs. She too, past loom, hatchel, and 
spinning-wheel, found her way to the iron door, and pulling it open, prepared to 
enter the dark grated chamber. 

If ever a mind was supped full of horror, it was Peter's when he heard a 
noise at the iron door, and beheld the supposed ghost of Penelope Royall, tall 
and avengeful, standing before him. He uttered a pitiful shriek, slid through 
the iron bars, and dropped down the chimney into the fireplace. There he 
recovered himself at once, leaped up with a bound, fled from the house, and 
almost flew toward the town. 

But Aunt Prudence ? Shocked on finding the supposed robber in the old 
smoke chamber, she too fled precipitately for the outside door, turning over the 






WHAT MR. MARLOWE FOUND TO TAKE HOME. 279 

spinning-wheel in her flight. Once into the open air, she made equal speed 
toward the slumbering village. 

She did not see the form of Peter in advance of her ; but he paused a 
moment for breath, and saw the supposed form of Penelope pursuing him, " all 
in white." It stimulated his resolution to gain the town. It was a mile or 
more from the Mount Hope farms to the old village, and Peter fleeing from the 
ghost, and Aunt Prudence from the robber, went over this distance in a very 
brief part of the midnight hour. 

" The Bristol clock struck the hour of twelve. An out-of-town Christmas 
Eve party were returning home at this late hour on foot, and on the skirts of 
the village were surprised by Peter, wrapped in his odd blanket. The merry- 
makers knew him well, laughed, and plied him with questions. 

" The ghost ! " he shrieked, as soon as he could recover his voice, and 
pointed to the hill. " Penelope ! " 

The astonished young people looked in the direction in which Peter had 
pointed. There surely was a tall white form that seemed to have wings and to 
come half flying toward them through the air. They had heard of such things,, 
but had never seen one before. Had they numbered but two or three, they 
would have fled ; but there were some ten or twelve in the party, and they 
waited the coming of the strange apparition. 

" 'T is me she 's after — Penelope — 't is me," screamed Peter. " The Lord 
have mercy upon me ! My time is come now, true as preachin'." 

The white figure was soon before them. It no sooner reached the place 
than it sunk down upon the earth. 

" Take me home with you ; there 's a robber in the house ! " 

A ghost and a robber ! 

" It's Aunt Prudence Wardwell," said one of the young men, after a pause, 
on hearing such a midnight tale. " Why, Aunt Prudence, what is the 
matter ? " 

"Protect me — take me home, somewhere. Oh, there's a robber in the 
house, — a robber ! " 

" Here 's Peter," said the young man. " I thought he lived with you." 

" Peter ? " gasped the woman all in white. 

" Yes. Here, Peter, what does this mean ? " 

"I — I — thought, oh, I thought, Aunt Prudence, that you was a ghost. I 
did, true as preachin'." 

"How did you get here, Peter? Oh, there's a robber in the house. Did 
you hear me when I called you ? I saw him enter by the window, — saw him 



2 8o ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

with my own eyes, Peter. He's hid in the old smoke chamber. Oh, Peter, 
where shall we go, oh ! oh ! " 

It was all clear to Peter now, painfully clear; the cloud had lifted. 

" It was me, Aunty." 

What ? Aunt Prudence's tall form rose slowly. 

" It was me who got into the house by the window." 

" You ? " 

" Yes — I must confess — I run away and went to the town to the festival. 
I did — I must confess — true as preachin'." 

" You ? " 

"Yes." 

" Oh, Peter, let 's go home. What two dreadful-looking objects we are ! 
I ain't afraid of ghosts." 

"And I ain't afraid of no robbers, nor no such. What a time we've made 
of it ! — and the folks will all laugh at us too. Let 's go home. That 's the 
place for us, true as preachin'." 

The Robber and Ghost, two spectral figures, departed, with a great sense of 
relief, but with many reserved opinions. Peter never received the present of 
the bountiful bag, but neither ghosts nor robbers were ever known to trouble 
the Royall house again. It became a very quiet place, and Peter Fayerweather 
settled down there to his pastoral and domestic duties, and really fulfilled Aunt 
Prudence's hopes of him, his thrifty farming doing real credit to the beautiful 
and historic Mount Hope Lands. 1 

1 Originally published in Harper's Weekly. 







MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 




IMONG the things that especially interested the 

Marlowes in the Manufacturing and Liberal Arts 

Building, was the German Exhibition of toys, and 

the Hans Christian Anderson room, in the Danish 

department. The Liberal Arts Building seemed to 

be the representative world, the exhibition of the 

very best that the human mind can accomplish under a single roof. 

" The birds fly about over these forty acres," said young Ephraim 

Marlowe, "and do not know that they are not out of doors." 

" The building is a prairie covered with glass, so it seems to me," 
said Mr. Marlowe. " How bright and beautiful ! Listen ! " 

As he spoke there fell upon the acres of industrial art the music of 
the chimes. 

Our trio in their journeys often rested in the Building of Public 
Comfort, and at times on the wide, cool porticos and verandas of the 



282 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 



Woman's Building. They sometimes went for coffee to the Brazilian 
Garden, or to the Cafes of Costa Rica and Venezuela. 

The Children's Building was always a charm. A house to be 
delightful must have a generous and sympathetic soul, and this the 

Children's Building had in Mrs. Clara 
Doty Bates, to whom this department 
largely owed its successful evolution. 
Mrs.. Bates' own room was filled with 
portraits of children's authors, and the 
best books for the young. 

The Folk-Lore Societies held their 
meetings in the Art Palace, in the city, 
where the Auxiliary Congresses met. 
There were many private meetings among 
these amiable story-tellers. In one of the 
twenty-eight or more halls devoted to such 
meetings, Mr. Marlowe related the story 
of " Waban," and recited a legend asso- 
ciated with the arrival of the "Viking." 

Dunns: the visits of the Marlowes at 
the Fair, there occurred one day a very 
tragic scene. The Cold Storage Ware- 
house took fire, and some firemen were 
sent up to the top of the high tower. 
While they were there, the flames burst 
out around the tower below, and they 
saw that they were doomed. 

One of these, seeing his fate, seemed 
to glory in the thought that his life was 
to end in sacrifice for others. He put his hand to his lips, threw a 
kiss to the awestruck multitude, and thus parting with the world 
leaped into the flames. A man never knows how noble he may be 




CLOCK TOWER IN THE MANU- 
FACTURES BUILDING. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART P A LACE. 



283 



till his worth is put to the test. Mr. Marlowe, the Quaker, thought 
that this man's death was the noblest scene that he saw at the great 
Fair. 

The Court of Honor at night was a scene of the new world of 
electricity such as the past had never seen. One night amid the 




FRENCH DEPARTMENT OF THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 

thronging thousands there burst over the vast area a song between 
the selections of the great orchestra. It was " Nearer my God to 
Thee." It seemed like a cry in the night. At another time the song 
of " Old Folks at Home " in like manner followed the band. 




FRENCH COLONIES BUILDING. 



The French building allured our trio, who were greatly interested 
in its beautiful rooms. The German building on the inside presented 
the stately and gloomy grandeur of an old cathedral. AH of the for- 



284 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

eign buildings were plans of their own countries, and in most of them, 
especially in the South American, one felt the charm and spell of 
what they were intended to express. 

Day by day the delighted crowds surged on. One could hardly 
dream here that there was such a thing as death in the world. None 
of the faces seemed to wear any trace of sorrow or care. Every one 
appeared happy. O blessed hours ! When will the world ever find 
in associated life such pleasure again ? 

A WABAN ROSE. 

I went out to the bowery hills of the little town named Waban, to 
see the wonderful Waban roses. " There must be some legends 
here ? " said I. 

" There is," said the gardener. Then we sat down among the 
roses, and he told it to me. 

WABAN. 

Tommy Trembly was a tinker. " Tommy Tinker " he might have been 
called, for, like his English craftsman of the same trade name, he was accus- 
tomed to roam 

the country around, 
Crying, " Old brass to mend." 

The old New England tinkers were useful folk in their day, but they are as 
dead to customs of the present time as poor Christopher Sly, whom the curious 
ballad of " The Tinker's Good Fortune " put for a time in a duke's place, and 
whom Shakespeare so happily celebrates in the Induction to the comedy of the 
"Taming of the Shrew." 

Our New England tinker, Tommy Trembly, did not experience any such 
good fortune as Christopher's. But he resembled Sly in his alehouse habits, 
and like him, hoped for the accidents of fortune. 

He did not chance to fall into the kindly hands of the good Duke of Bur- 
gundy, but he did fall into the pastoral court of Old Waban, the famous Indian 
judge. This did not bring him the fortune that he expected ; and it is of 
Tommy Trembly's ill-luck and misfortune as a witness in court that I have a 
somewhat curious provincial story to tell. 






THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 285 

Old Waban's name meant the wind. To the Indians of Natick he was the 
wind. His mind, it was believed, swept the sky, wandered free over the forests 
and streams, and comprehended all things. When the wind uttered his voice 
the truth was thought to have been spoken, and nothing more needed saying. 
The Wind was the oracle. 

Waban's name still lives. The beautifully shaded lake under the green hills 
about Wellesley College, over which the girl students often row in good weather, 
will always recall the name of the famous chief which it bears ; and a pretty 
suburban village near Boston is also called Waban. The name is worth per- 
petuating, for Waban was a noble chief and an upright judge. 

He was a judge more than a chief; and Natick, and other old towns on the 
winding Charles River, used to be full of anecdotes of his odd but wise edicts. 

One of his writs against an evil-doer who bore the name of Jeremiah Offscow 
was long preserved. 

It ran : " You, you big constable guide, you catch urn Jeremiah Offscow, 
strong you hold um, safe you bring um afore me. Waban, justice of the peace." 
He had a love of fine-sounding and rhythmic language, as the writ shows. 

Waban's principal residence was at Natick, but that name once compre- 
hended the whole region along the Charles River occupied by the Natick 
Indians. The great tree at Brighton, under which he used to pray and preach, 
was for public safety recently cut down. It was the largest tree ever known in 
the New England Colonies. 

Old Waban's judgments at court were often severe. A young Indian justice 
of the peace came to him one day, and said : — 

" What would you do in case where a whole company of Indians were found 
to have become drunk and quarrelsome? " 

" I first tie them all up." 

"And then?" 

" I would whip um plaintiff." 

"Yes?" 

" And then I whip um 'fendant ! " 

The young Indian looked surprised. 

" What I do with the witnesses in such a case? Listen." 

But I will not tell here what old Judge Waban would have done with a witness 
in such a situation, for it would anticipate my story. 

Tommy Trembly, the tinker, roamed up and down the provincial towns, 
with a soldering iron and pail of solder in a loose bag on his back, crying lustily, 
as he passed a house, "Old brass to mend? Old brass to mend?" by which 
he meant: " Have you any kitchen utensils that need repairing? " 



286 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Much of the cooking and laundrying was done at this period in immense 
brass kettles, which after long use became thin and leaky, and the leaks were 
commonly mended by the wandering tinker during his visits. 

Tommy Trembly was a pioneer of his craft. He used to wander from Boston 
up and down the towns on the Charles River, and into the Indian towns of 
Natick, Punkapoag and Magunkaquog, or " the place of great trees," as Hop- 
kinton was once called. Other tinkers wandered up the valley of the Merrimac. 

Nearly every village had an " ordinary," or eating-house. This place was 
sometimes more a drinking-house than an eating-house. Most of the disorderly 
conduct of those generally well-conducted days began in the mugs of these old 
taverns. 

There were some twelve hundred Praying Indians, as the Christian Indians 
were called, in the villages near Boston at this time. These had been converted 
to Christianity through the efforts of John Eliot, the Indian apostle, who trans- 
lated the Bible into the Indian tongue. The principal seat of the Praying- 
Indians was at Natick, and Waban was their principal leader, governor, coun- 
sellor, and judge. 

There was an ordinary near the borders of Lake Cochituate, not far from the 
Indian village, kept by one " Indian Pendergast " and his wife, which acquired a 
bad reputation from the brawls that had occurred there over the drinking-cups. 
Squaw Pendergast, as the hostess was called, was a sharp-eyed, money-loving 
Indian woman, who could speak English well ; and it was her passion to secure 
as many pence and shillings as possible from every guest who came. 

" 'T is the bar that makes the money, I tell you ; 't is the bar that makes the 
money. Slap ! " she used to say, striking her hand on her long, jingling jacket. 

"Yes," once answered a grave old Indian deacon; " and it is the bar that 
loses the money at last, and good name and soul and all, as you will see, Squaw 
Pendergast. Ale money um heap poor ! " 

One early autumn day Tommy Trembly wandered away from Boston along 
the Charles River, through little settlements and past the farms, crying, when 
he saw a habitation, "Old brass to mend? Old brass to mend?" 

The next afternoon found him at Natick. He had mended many pots and 
kettles by the way. The heats of early autumn were cooling now ; the apples 
were reddening on the trees. There were thistle-downs on the roads and by- 
ways, and the graceful leaves of the sassafras were turning yellow. 

Approaching Natick, Tommy ceased to cry, "Old brass to mend?" He 
had earned much money by the way, and his only thought now was of the 
ordinary, and of Squaw Pendergast's hard cider and foaming mugs of ale. 
Here and there a farmer called to him to stop, but he did not heed. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 287 

" Here, stop, stop ! Kettles, kettles ! " shouted one goodwife ; but Tommy 
did not even turn his head in response. 

"Stop that wild tinker; kettles, kettles!" she cried to her hired man. 
" Kettles, kettles ! " shouted the man, swinging his corn-knife ; but on flew 
Tommy, unheeding. 

"Are you flying to-day? " asked black-eyed Squaw Pendergast, as his dusty 
figure moved athwart the cool trunks of the trees. 

" Ay, Squaw Pendergast, and it 's good money I 've made to-day," said 
Tommy, striking on a pocket in his leather breeches. 

" It 's a lively supper that I have for you," said the squaw. Tommy threw 
down his bag of tools and fanned himself with his hat, looking away to the 
sunset sky. 

A " lively " supper Tommy made, but his pocket did not chink so lively 
after it was over. Some idling cattle-drovers came, and he took another supper 
with them ; and after his two suppers were over his leather pocket did not 
chink at all. But the chink might have been heard in Squaw Pendergast's long 
woollen pocket. 

During the evening a quarrel arose between the half-intoxicated drovers and 
Pendergast, the keeper of the ordinary, who was an ale-drinking, indolent, dis- 
orderly Indian. The men disputed ; the Indian interfered, and struck one of 
them to the floor, where he lay for a time insensible. 

The squaw took her husband's side in the quarrel, and threw firewood at the 
drovers ; and amid it all the alarmed neighbors came to the place and de- 
manded the keeping of the peace. 

The idlers at the ordinary went away through fear of arrest, and with them 
disappeared Tommy Trembly's bag of tinker's tools, solder, and soldering irons. 

The man recovered, but the next morning came an order from Judge Waban 
for the arrest of the Indian Pendergast and his squaw, and also a demand that 
Tommy Trembly should appear as witness. 

The court day was appointed. Tommy was greatly frightened, for the 
eccentric punishments of Old Waban's courts were famous; and the affair 
presented Tommy in no favorable light among the grave Puritan Indians. 

" I am only a witness," he said to the people who stared at him on the way, 
" only the witness, you know." 

" You don't know what you will find yourself when you get into the court 
of Old Waban," said a farmer. " If you were n't a white man I would not like 
to stand in your place." 

The court was held on the brown fields near where Wellesley College now 



288 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

stands. The slopes were cooled by great oak shadows, and overlooked the 
lovely pond now called Lake Waban. All the people, Indians and white, 
gathered from skeleton villages around to witness the trial. 

It was a hot autumn day. The locusts sang in the great oaks, and the 
ospreys whirled in the sky. The grasses rustled ; the ferns were turning 
yellow, and blue gentians filled the dry beds of the summer weirs under the 
hills. 

Here and there wild grasses hung from the trees, and everywhere the 
always curious bluejays floated and scolded, as if to ask what meant all this 
gathering of the people. 

Old Waban sat under a patriarchal oak, grave and stately. A blanket 
trimmed with shells was thrown over him. He wore leather breeches, and 
herons' plumes covered his head. He was an old man, but his hair was black 
and long. His hands were hard and brawny as copper, and as he sat down on 
a shelf of rock under the oak, he rested his chin on a staff. 

Among the Indians who gathered around him were several who claimed to 
be nearly one hundred years old. Peambow, or Peam Boohan, the ruling elder 
of Hassanamesit (Groton), was there, and Pennahannit, or Captain Josiah, the 
governor-general of the Praying Indian towns. Several sagamores came in 
blankets and feathers, and some twenty or more white people were present. 

Finally came Joshua Mayhew, Esq., on horseback, as the representative 
justice of the General Court of Massachusetts to the rustic court of the Christian 
Indian community. It was high noon, and old Judge Waban slowly rose, and 
stood with lifted hand. " Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the voice of 
the Wind." He looked a forest patriarch, as he stood in the shadow of the sun- 
crowned oak. 

"The peace has been broken. A white man is the witness of it. Let the 
prisoners be brought, and Thomas Trembly, who is the witness. Sit down ! " 

All sat down on the ground. The two prisoners were brought, with their 
hands tied behind them. After them came Tommy Trembly. 

" Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the voice of the Wind," said Old 
Waban, rising, with lifted hand. " Thomas Trembly, tell us the story of the 
fight which you saw at Pendergast's," 

Tommy told his story, — the quarrel, and how he was robbed. 

" It was a bad place? " said Waban, shaking his head. 

" It was an orful bad place, — an orful place," said Tommy. 

" The people were all drinking there? " 

" All drinking. Yes, it was orful." 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 289 

" Did you drink? " 

" I took a warm supper. I had been travelling and tinkering." 

Squaw Pendergast bent her black eyes angrily upon him. 

" And I was robbed," said Tommy, with a martyr-like air. " The squaw 
she first got away from me all my money for — my supper. Then I was 
frightened, and then I was robbed. I have lost almost a week's work." 

" Ugh ! " said Old VVaban ; " hard times you 've had. Ugh ! 

" Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the voice of the Wind," he 
presently said. "What shall be done with the Indian Pendergast?" 

There was a council of the leading Indians. 

" Let him be tied to a hornbeam, and given fifty lashes on his bare back," 
said Waban. 

A small hornbeam-tree stood near. Indian Pendergast was tied to it, his 
clothing was partly removed, and he was whipped, amid the silence of the 
assembly. 

" Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the voice of the Wind," said Old 
Waban. "What shall be done with the squaw? " 

Another council, as before. 

"Twenty-five lashes on her shoulders," pronounced Old Waban. 

She was led away to the hornbeam, and received the lashes in perfect 
silence, as though she had been an image. 

"You got paid well," said Tommy, as she was led by him after the 
chastisement. 

" Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the voice of the Wind ! " said Old 
Waban to the drovers. " Go, take your cattle and drive them away, and never 
do you come again to the honest Indian towns. If you come, you shall go to 
the hornbeam-tree, too. Go ! " 

He lifted his brown arm and pointed to the north. He stood like a statue. 
The drovers did not reply ; they knew his right to order them away from the 
towns. The cattle were grazing in the meadowy pastures under the hills, 
among the tall swamp-grass and spearmint beds and fir-trees. The drovers 
hurried them away. 

There was something grand in the old Indian as he stood there with lifted 
arm, the very picture of Justice and Truth. Here was a forest prophet who, 
under the Christian teaching of Eliot, had put the nature of the savage animal, 
to which he had been born, under his will, and was governed by his faith in 
God and moral sense. 

He was called "The New Chief" because he had developed a new nature 

19 



29O ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

and become a new man. Odd his decisions in court often were, but there was 
moral sense in them, and he believed that when Waban the Wind spoke, he 
uttered the will of the Higher Power. 

The people watched the drovers as they cracked their whips and disappeared 
among the blazed trees of the oaklands. Waban at length broke the silence. 

" Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! for the last time. Listen to the voice of the 
Wind. What shall be done with Thomas Trembly? " 

"Done?" said Tommy, starting ; "done with me? I haven't done nothing. 
I 'm white ; you can't touch me. I 'm only a witness." 

"Ugh!" said Old Waban. 

" I ought to be paid for my tinker's tools," said Tommy. 

" Ugh ! " said Old Waban, " you lost them there." 

" Yes, that was the very place where I lost them ; and I '11 lose a week's time 
beside." 

" And that because you were there? " 

"Yes ; and by good rights I ought to be paid the cost of my tools, and the 
money I lost at the inn after being so shamefully used there," said Tommy. 

" Ugh ! Hear ye ! hear ye ! hear ye ! Listen to the Wind. What shall be 
done with Thomas Trembly, the tinker? " 

" Give him the ordinary," said a white man. " Fine the Pendergasts by 
giving the tinker the ordinary." 

The chief again lifted his hand. 

" Take him," said Waban, " to the hornbeam-tree, and give him as many 
sound lashes as you gave the squaw." 

" What ! You can't ! I am a white man ! " 

" But the white brother here," said Waban, turning to Justice Mayhew, 
" approves my sentence. Take him to the hornbeam." 

" What for? what for? " screamed the tinker. 

" What for?" said Waban. " What for? For being found in bad company. 
" You should n't have been there ! " 

Tommy received the chastisement in a very frantic manner, uttering the 
loudest protestations. When the lashes had been given he crept away, hardly 
lifting his eyes. 

The people of Natick were slow to forget the old chief's methods with wit- 
nesses who were found in bad company, and who " should n't have been there." 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETLNGS AT THE ART PALACE. 29 1 

LEGEND OF NORTHMEN'S ROCK. 1 

(Thorfin, 1007.) 

Have you heard it — the Northmen's Rune of the Rose 

In the climes of the sunbeams pale ? 
' T was — Far from the night of the six months' snows 

Went the barque of the silver sail. 
' T was — Far from the lands of the frozen fens 

Lay the lands of the sunshine clear. 
And Thorfin followed the osprey's pens, 
With his bride from Fiord Fere, 
To the land of the lily and rose, 

To the land where the wild woods sing; 
Oh, happy the bride of the North, who goes 
On the barque of the silver wing ! 

The palace a pile of crystal shone, 

And its ice walls were mingled with fire, 
And minstrels sat round the mailed throne, 

With red torch, the saga and lyre. 
" I have married a wife," said Thorfin, young, 

" And my bride is tender and fair; 
And I 've heard the tale by the minstrels sung, 
Of the land of the golden air, 
Of the land of the lily and rose, 

Of the land where the sun-birds sing, 
Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, 
And the winters are bright with spring. 

" My crystal sails in the silver mist, 

I will lift where the warm winds play, 
And over the seas of amethyst, 

I will bear my bride away 
Far over the sea-road Eric the Red, 

Past Helluland the fair, 
To the pine-plumed mountain that lifts its head 
In the land of the golden air; 
To the land of the lily and rose, 

The land where the sun-birds sing, 
Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, 
And the winters are bright with spring." 

From the fiords white moved the lateen sail, 
From the fiords white and gray, 

1 This Rock may be seen on the East shore of the Mt. Hope Lands, near the Soldiers' Home. 



292 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

Where the nights are fire and the sun is pale, 

And snow-mists veil the day. 
" Farewell " sang the bards in the crystal halls, 

To the barque of Thorfin fair. 
" We still will sing at the festivals 
Of the land of the golden air; 
Of the land of the lily and rose, 

The land where the sun-birds sing ; 
Oh, happy the bride of the North that goes 
On the barque of the silver wing." 

They came to the slopes of the New World's Bay, 

And the either hills .were green, 
But a red canoe with plumes of gray 

In the dusky nights was seen. 
Then Thorfin said: " The sun is bright, 

And its summers are wondrous fair, 
But the wily savage lurks at night 
In the land of the golden air; 
In the land of the lily and rose, 

The land where the sun-birds sing, 
Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, 
And the winters are bright with spring 

" We will write our names on the sea walls clear, 

On the reedy rocks by the Bay ; 
And the legend leave of our young child here, 

Then sail o'er the seas away." 
So back o'er the waves of the windy seas, 

The child of their love they bear, 
To dream of the mount and its sun-crowned trees 
In the land of the golden air ; 
In the land of the lily and rose, 

In the land where the sun-birds sing, 
Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, 
And the winters are bright with spring. 

To the fiords wild came the lateen sail, 

To the fiords white and gray, 
Where the nights are fire, and the sun is pale, 

And the snow-mists veil the day. 
" The sail comes back," said the bards of the halls, 

" From the land of lands most fair ; 
Now what shall we sing at the festivals ? 

For sorrow and death are there, 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 293 

In the land of the lily and rose, 

In the land where the sun-birds sing, 
And the world is not happy wherever goes 

The barque with the silver wing." 

On their royal pens round Mount Hope Bay, 

The ospreys scream in the noons, 
And the early bluebirds flit, and stray 

The herons white, in the moons. 
And the rocks of the Bay, the legends say, 

The name of the young child bear; 
Though centuries nine have passed away, 
From the booths of Thorfin there ; 

And this was the Northmen's Rune of the Rose, 

And the land of the sunshine clear, 
And the bride who sailed from the Norland snows 
And the waters of Fiord Fere. 

The last stories told at the folk-lore meetings in the Art Palace 
were largely in verse. One of these was a peculiar kind of old New 
England narrative, told in the " chink, chink " manner ; another was 
an Illinois wonder-tale, with a peculiar refrain. 

The old Puritan baby-story of the " wee, wee pig " was also recited 
in the colonial manner. 

We end our folk-lore stories with these curious examples of legend 
and traditions. 

THE ROCK OF THE ILLINOIS. 

A BALLAD. 

The Illini lived in the climes of the flowers, 
Where the air-swimming birds in the sunshine delight, 
Where the summers were splendors of magical hours, 
And the day was a sun-torch, a star-torch the night. 
Oh, fair were their lives on the carpets of bloom, 
And loud were their fire-songs of triumph and joy, 
And redly their night-torches danced through the gloom 
At their feasts on the Rock of the blue Illinois: 

The gray rock that hung 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river ! 



294 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

That Rock was the Indian's glory and pride, 

The crown of the venturous chiefs, massive and strong, 

The prairies beneath it, and dimpling beside 

The bright laughing face of the river of song. 

But the Plumes of the Lakes all united at last, 

The tribes of the Illini proud to destroy, 

And down from the northern plains swept like a blast, 

And laid siege to the Rock of the blue Illinois : 

The gray rock that hung 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river ! 

"Ho ! Ho ! " cry the chiefs of the Illini proud, 
To the braves of the Lakes on the prairie below, 
"Ye have come in the sun, ye will go in the cloud, 
As the hatchet-wolves run to the timber — Ho ! ho ! " — 
" Ho! Ho!" answer back the Lake Plumes, in their ire, 
" 'Tis the North winds that wither, and waste and destroy s 
We have come in the blast, and will go in the fire." 
Then loud laughed the Rock of the blue Illinois : 

The gray rock that hung 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river. 

And gayly their sun-dance the Illini kept, 

And boastful they rested at eve in the dews, 

But nearer and nearer their wily foes crept, 

And the cool river filled with their rocking canoes. 

Seven suns lit the day ; seven moons lit the night; 

Then fled from the Illini's faces the joy; 

For the water was low, and the springs sunk from sight, 

And the foe held the banks of the blue Illinois! 

Oh, the gray rock that hung 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river ! 

They lowered their gourds to the river in vain ; 
They crept toward the rippling waters to die; 
They called on the gods of the cloudlands for rain, 
But answered them only the flames of the sky. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 295 

They delved, but in vain, in famishing springs ; 
They sought, but in vain, the red Plumes to deploy ; 
Their thirst deeper burned, and the rain-plover's wings 
Brought no cloud to the air of the blue Illinois : 
To the gray rock that hung 

O'er the billows of blooms, 
Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 
And cool, cool ran the prairie river! 

An Indian mother crept down to the tide, 

On her famishing bosom her babe newly born ; 

The cool waters rippled the rock ferns beside, 

And sweetly the rain-plover sung in the corn. 

" Back ! " shouted the foe, with their cross-bows upraised: 

She drew to her fever-spent bosom her boy ; 

And her thin, withered face to the blazing sky raised, 

And leaped, and lay dead in the blue Illinois ! 

Oh, the gray rock that hung 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river ! 

" Ho ! Ho !" cried the Plumes of the Northern Lakes proud, 
To the braves on the Rock whose red warfare was done. 
" Ho ! Ho ! we came down in the billows of cloud, 
But our feet will go back in the paths of the sun." 
One by one sunk the braves on the high Rock to die ; 
One by one did the gray wolves of fever destroy ; 
And the Northern winds blew, and the waves rippled by, 
And the rain-plover sang on the blue Illinois ! 

Oh, the gray rock that hung 
O 'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sung 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool, cool ran the prairie river! 

Their red wars were ended, their victories past. 
They perished, the cool waters singing below ; 
" Ho ! Ho ! " again shouted the Plumes of the blast ; 
But only the silent Rock echoed " Ho ! Ho ! " 
'T was so, fever maddened, the Illini died, 
Whose bright, airy tents filled the prairies with joy, 
And the rain-plover sings o'er their white bones beside 
The gray, crumbling Rock of the blue Illinois ! 



296 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

But often the boatman his moonlit oar lifts, 

And holds in the air, and his boat gliding slow, 

He listens — and o'er him a thin echo drifts. 

" Ho ! Ho ! " and re-echoes " Ho ! Ho ! " and " Ho ! Ho ! " 

Like the breath of the dying it comes, and is gone ; 

Like the shuddering leaves that the still frosts destroy, 

And sweetly the rain-plover sings in the corn, 

When the morning breeze ripples the blue Illinois ! 

And the gray rocks still hang 
O'er the billows of blooms, 

Where the rain-plover sang 
In the dark under glooms, 

And cool runs the prairie river ! 



"THE WEE WEE PIG." 

There was, once on a time, a wee wee old woman who lived in a wee wee 
house near Cockermouth in old England. One day when the wee wee old 
woman was sweeping her wee wee house with a wee wee broom, she found a 
wee wee sixpence. So she took her wee wee sixpence and went to market and 
bought a wee wee pig, and started her wee wee pig on the road to her wee wee 
home. The wee wee pig went along very well until they came to a bridge, 
which the wee wee old woman could not persuade, coax, or force her wee wee 
pig to cross. So the wee wee old woman left her wee wee pig, and went back 
until she came to a stick. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, stick, do beat wee wee pig; wee wee 
pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the stick 
would n't beat wee wee pig. So the wee wee old woman went along until she 
came to a fire. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, fire, do burn stick; stick won't beat wee 
wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night! " 
But the fire would n't burn the stick. So the wee wee old woman went along 
till she came to some water. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, water, do quench fire; fire won't burn 
stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I 
sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the water would n't quench the fire. So the 
wee wee old woman went along till she came to an ox. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, ox, do drink water; water won't quench 
fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go 
over bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the ox would n't drink 
water. So the wee wee old woman went aloncr till she came to a butcher. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 299 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, butcher, do kill ox ; ox won't drink 
water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee wee 
pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But 
the butcher would n't kill the ox. So the wee wee old woman went along till 
she came to a rope. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, rope, do hang butcher; butcher won't 
kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, 
stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't 
git home to-night ! " But the rope would n't hang butcher. So the wee wee 
old woman went along till she came to a rat. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, rat, do gnaw rope; rope won't hang 
butcher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't quench fire, 
fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over 
bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the rat would n't gnaw the rope. 
So the wee wee old woman went along till she came to a cat. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, cat, do kill rat; rat won't gnaw rope, 
rope won't hang butcher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water 
won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee 
pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the cat 
would n't kill the rat. So the wee wee old woman went along till she came 
to a dog. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, dog, do kill cat; cat won't kill rat, rat 
won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang butcher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't 
drink water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee 
wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I sha'n't git home to-night ! " 
But the dog would n't kill the cat. So the wee wee old woman went along till 
she came to a bear. 

Said the wee wee old woman, "Oh, bear, do kill dog; dog won't kill cat, 
cat won't kill rat, rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang butcher, butcher won't 
kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, 
stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I sha' n't 
git home to-night ! " But the bear would n't kill dog. So the wee wee old 
woman went along till she came to a lion. 

Said the wee wee old woman, " Oh, lion, do kill bear; bear won't kill dog, 
dog won't kill cat, cat won't kill rat, rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang but- 
cher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't quench fire, fire 
won't burn stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over 
bridge, and I sha' n't git home to-night ! " But the lion would n't kill bear. 



30O ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

The poor old wee wee woman was now in a dreadful quandary. The lion 
was king of beasts, and the wee wee old woman did n't know anything that could 
kill the lion. So the wee wee old woman sat down on an old stump, discour- 
aged and all tired out. 

Presently the wee wee old woman saw a wee little black flea, on her checked 
apron. 

So just in joke and for nonsense the wee wee old woman said, "Oh, wee 
wee flea, do kill lion ; lion won't kill bear, bear won't kill dog, dog won't kill 
cat, cat won't kill rat, rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang butcher, butcher 
won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't quench fire, fire won't burn 
stick, stick won't beat wee wee pig, wee wee pig won't go over bridge, and I 
sha' n't git home to-night ! " 

Now the wee wee flea was a kind-soul ed, womanish little wee wee flea, and 
no sooner was she made acquainted with the poor old wee wee woman's trouble 
than the wee wee flea gave a spring and lighted just inside the lion's right 
nostril, out of the reach of his paw. 

Here the wee wee flea began to bite the inside of the lion's nose so 
sharp that he got dreadful mad, and just out of spite began to kill the bear, 
whereupon the bear began to kill the dog, the dog began to kill the cat, the cat 
began to kill the rat, the rat began to gnaw the rope, the rope began to hang 
the butcher, the butcher began to kill the ox, the ox began to drink the water, 
the water began to quench the fire, the fire began to burn the stick, the stick 
began to beat the wee wee pig, the wee wee pig began to go over the bridge, 
and the wee wee old woman got home time enough to go to bed that night. 

A CHINK CHINK STORY. 

The old story-tellers in the sea-faring towns used to strike their 
clenched hands on their knees so as to make a sound like the chink- 
ing of money. 

THE WISE LITTLE WOMAN WHO OPENED THE PEWS. 1 

I. 

Have you heard of the tropical Isles of June, 
The coral isles with their splendors of palms, 
Where the sails hang loose in the languorous noon, 
And a dusky sun is the rising moon, 

1 Permission of " St. Nicholas." 





DRAW-BRIDGES. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. 303 

And the Southern Cross hangs over the sea 
Like the jewels of Heaven ? Ah, me ! ah, me ! 
Those gardens of gold in the opal main, 
How they tempted the souls of the pilots of Spain ! 
But as John the old Sailor was wont to say, 
When he told old tales in his comical way, 
" 'T is only the gold that does good that is good — 
And only the rightful gold is gain. 
Alas for the spoil of the pilots of Spain! 
'Twas fool's gold all." 



Our John was a sailor, Sailor John, 
A grizzly old sailor of Provincetown Bay, 
And one queer old tale that he used to tell 
By the bright fire-dogs to the boys now gone, 
And the fisher-folk — I remember well. 
He would tell it to us in his odd old way, 
After the revels on Christmas Day, 
And at evening after the hours of play. 
He would lock his hands and strike them upon 
His knees, like this: chink, chink, chink, chink. 
It sounds like coins of gold, I know, 
It sounds like coins of gold — but oh, 
When you open your hands there is nothing there 
But a goldless chasm of empty air ! — 
'T was fool's gold all. 



Our John the sailor, Sailor John, 

He used to tell the tale this way, 

In a very slow and deliberate way, 

After the storms upon Provincetown Bay: 

" 'T is about Sir Francis Drake of the Tay, 

Who was born in a hut beside the Tavy, 

A famous salt in Elizabeth's day, 

The old sea-dog of the British Navy. 

He guarded the coast of England well, 

And haunted the seas, that old invader, 

And gathered spoils from the Spanish war, 

From the Isles of June to Cristobel, 

And flouted King Philip off Trafalgar, 

And scattered the ships of the Great Armada. 

The first to sail the Pacific Sea, 

And first to smoke tobacco was he. 



304 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

" And he said at last, ' Our coast is hilly, 
And the northern seas are dark and chilly ; 
I 'm growing old and my veins are cold, 
But still my soul is athirst for goid. 
Let me go once more to the Spanish Main, 
To isles of the sun, and the golden rain, 
And rob the galleons old of Spain." 
He went and died 'mid the isles, ah me! 
And his white ship scudded across the sea, 
The ' Golden Hinde' in the western wind, 
And never again to his home came he — 
But only his gold brought home again. 
'Twas fool's gold all. 

IV. 

" Old Plymouth stands by the windy sea, 

As lovely a city as ever was seen. 

And fair are the churches of Plymouth dean, 1 

And tall was the church that stood on the quay. 

" Now lonely old Susan lived on the moor, 

Away from the tower of Plymouth Green, 

Away from the roads of Plymouth dean. 

A little old woman and poor was she, 

Whose father had died on the stormy sea, 

And she went to the church on each Lord's Day, 

Though her cottage was many a mile away — 

To the sailor's church that looked o'er the bay, 

The church of the storms and wild sea-mews, 

And she was hired to open the pews. 

It made the church seem friendly and free, 

To open the pews by charity. 

The standing committee who seated the people, 

And the grim old bell-ringer who lived in the steeple, 

And the beadle who kept evil-doers in awe, 

And tickled the sleeper's nose with a straw, 

And made lazy old women jump up in their dreams, 

And wake all their neighbors with spasms and screams 

They were worthy folks all, but not equal in dues 

To the wise little woman who opened the pews. 

And the good folks on Sunday each gave her a penny, 

And at weddings and Christmases twice as many, 

And at Hallowe'en they gave her a guinea. 

" Now, one autumn morn, as she came to the church, 
The sailors, lingering round the porch, 

1 Dean, as here used, means " a small valley." 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. T>°7 

Under the trees strange stories told 

Of Sir Francis Drake and his shipload of gold ; 

And Susan stopped and listened awhile, 

Then opened the pews in the long, broad aisle, 

Not over-pleased at the wonderful news. 

' T is only the gold that does good that is gain, 

And I want not the gold of the pilots of Spain,' 

Said the wise little woman who opened the pews. 



a 'T was in glimmering September — the hour, near noon ; 
The prayers had been read ; the clerk gave out a tune, 
And stood up and looked through the window, and then 
His eyes oped as though he 'd ne'er close them again ; 
His mouth opened too, and his lips rounded, so, 
And left on his face just the round letter O. 
Then he winked to the beadle, and winked to the squire, 
And their eyes sought the window, and turned from the choir. 
The horizon was broken — there were sails in the air ; 
And the cross of St. George on the breeze floated fair. 
Then arose from the quay a tumultuous shout, 
And the heads of the singers went bobbing about, 
And no one looked upward, but every one out. 



" The children grew restless, the tirewomen bold, 
And the beadle cried out, ' Run, run! I 've no doubt 
'T is Sir Francis Drake and his shipload of gold ! 
It will make us all rich, and we '11 have a new bell.' 
Then the beadle ran out ; and the clerk and the squire 
Said, ' We '11 now put new shingles upon the old spire ! ' 
Ran the sailors and women and tradespeople all ; 
And the deaconess, who could not her feelings repress, 
Said, ' Run, and it may be /'// get a new dress.' 
Till — oh, 't is a scandalous story to tell — 
Till no one was left save quaint Rector Mews 
And the wise little woman who opened the pews ; 
Only she, and the figures of saints on the wall. 
Then the rector said, ' Susan, we might as well run ; 
There 's a ship coming in from the isles of the sun. 
It bodes good to us all, this remarkable news ; 
I '11 run, while you shut up the pulpit and pews. 
'T is not every day I am called to behold 
A ship from the Indies all loaded with gold ! 



308 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

'T will make us so rich we '11 all things make new, 
And have a new hassock in every pew ! ' 
And he doffed his long robe in a hurry, and he 
Ran after the others all down to the quay. 

" Susan heard the men shouting on roof-top and shore, 
The boom of the cannon, the answering gun. 
But she turned from the church to her thatched-cottage door, 
And was thankful her riches had made her so poor. 



"Uneventful years passed, and dull was the news; 
And the wise little woman still opened the pews. 
And Sir Francis again from the port sailed away, 
Far off from the hills of the Tavy and Tay ; 
And at last the good people looked out on the main 
For his ship to appear in the distance again ; 
And the parson still preached on the sins of the Jews. 
From the Isles of June came not gold, spice, nor news ; 
And the wise little woman who opened the pews 
Used to say, ' You must search for gold on your knees, 
And look up to Heaven, not over the seas 
For gold-laden ships from the bright Caribbees, 
The riches that galleons bring over the deep. 
'T is only the gold that does good that is good ; 
And the gold that we covet and hoard up and keep, 
That 's fool's gold all.' ' 



" The St. Martin birds came to the church-tower tall, 

And the purple-winged swallows that lived in the wall ; 

The mavis sang sweet, and the green hedgerows burned, 

And the wayside brooks into violets turned; 

The lilies tossed in the scented air, 

The peach-boughs reddened, and whitened the pear. 

Again on a Sunday came wonderful news, 

And the little old woman who opened the pews 

Again heard the shoutings of joy on the quay, 

The cannon and answering gun on the sea. 

But half-mast hung the flag on that battleship old. 

Half-mast ! Who had died 'mid the cabins of gold? 

The grand ship rode into the harbor, and still 

Grew the wharves and the towers and the oak-shaded hill, 

And the news came at last, 't was Sir Francis had died 

'Mid his cabins of gold at the last Christmas-tide. 



THE FOLK-LORE MEETINGS AT THE ART PALACE. T>°9 

'Sir Francis?' they said. 'Let the old bell be tolled.' 

And the old bell began to toll — toll — toll, 

Toll — toll — toll — toll. 

We hope there was gold in Sir Francis's soul. 

And the people all turned from the long, windy quay, — 

With tears turned away from the May-pleasant sea, 

And talked of the brave old sea-lord who had died 

'Neath the Southern Cross at Christmas-tide, 

And whose form had been sunk in the deep, moving sea 

In the festival days of Nativity. 

IX. 

"When the folks sought the church to talk of the news, 
Came the wise little woman who opened the pews. 
And she said to the parson, ' I 'm sorry indeed ; 
'T is not that kind of gold that our spirits most need, 
But the gold of the Word, the heart and the deed. 
The Sea Knight has only that true gold to-day 
That his honor refused, or his heart gave away. 
Let us look no more to the stores of the seas, 
To the isles of the sun or the bright Caribbees — • 
Let us envy no more the rich galleons of Spain, 
'T is only the gold that does good that is gain. 
The wealth that avarice seeks to find 
Is like the gold of the " Golden Hinde; " 
Chink, chink, chink, chink ; who it commands 
Will stand at last with empty hands — 
'tis fool's eoldall!'" 



CHAPTER XIII. 



NIGHT IN THE COURT OF HONOR. 




T was a midsummer night in the Court of Honor; the 
crowds had vanished, and the air, the grounds, and 
the Lake were still. The Columbian Guards had 
retired from the weary duties of the day ; the lights, 
one by one, had gone out ; the constellations of 
electric splendors had passed away forever, for their 
renewal would be like the lighting of new stars. 

The White City stood in the silence like Shinar Tower after the 
confusion, for if on the plains of Babylonia people began to speak 
many tongues, here the harmony of 1'anguage found a prophetic 
expression again. The world had not built here a tower to touch 
the sky, from which men might enter heaven ; but the beauty that 
fancy places in heaven was here, and into it people came and went 
away, and read here the fulfilment of earthly and celestial visions. 
The realities of Plato, Virgil, and Sir Thomas More were here. 
All the beautiful thoughts of creative art from the beginning of 
time here found expression. Egypt was here; Greece; Rome, in her 
lone march through the world ; the half-foro-otten gods of the ancient 
world were here; Phidias was here; the Augustine age of the poets; 
the Roman age of colossal art. 

The Peristyle was white in the starlight under the serene sky. 
The Columbus Quadriga, with its grand horses and Grecian grooms, 
seemed a thing of the Lake and sky ; and the procession of heroes on 



NIGHT IN THE COURT OF HONOR. 



;l I 



the Peristyle was like a night march of the ghosts of the glorious 
sons of the world. 

The Columbian Fountain was motionless, and Father Time sat 
at the helm of the barge of state, on which Columbia was enthroned, 



■ 






*& 




PERISTYLE, FROM THE AGRICULTURAL BUILDING. 



facing the stars and not the rainbows of spray and the gay gondolas. 
The sturdy Statue of Labor, with the plough horse and primitive 
harness, stood solitary by the grand basin ; the swans moved to and 
fro on the lagoons, but all else was still life. 

The nations seemed dreaming, — England, Germany, FYance, 
Austria, in their houses and pavilions of history; Denmark, Italy, 



212 ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 

India ; charming Switzerland, the mother of republics ; tropical South 
America, where Edwin Arnold says may one day come the greatest 
development of the American race. The Transportation Building 
was like a shadow ; its grand portal, like the door of the sun, had 
lost its glory with the light. Who can ever forget its golden door 
in the morning light ! Wooded Island, too, with its Ho-o-den palace 
and Japanese garden, was a shadow; the Convent of La Rabida was 
a shadow, — and the Krupp Building, with its awful guns; the battle 
ship was a phantom ; the Walking Sidewalk rested ; the Eskimos 
were gone to their mats ; the Hagenbeek animals were sleeping in 
their cages ; Cairo, Java, Algeria, China, all slept in one great camp. 
There was silence in the coffee garden of Brazil. 

As our friends walked down the Court of Honor toward the 
Peristyle, the silence seemed a prophecy ; and like the song of the 
angels on the night of the Nativity, the air seemed to say, " The 
world is at peace." They could fancy that the old Destinies were 
there, and that they, as of old, said to their spindles, " Thus go on 
forever.' 1 

" If Shinar's Tower was the beginning.of the world's confusion, the 
White City by Lake Michigan may be the beginning of the new and 
eternal order of harmony," said the old Quaker, as the clocks broke 
the silence with twelve strokes each, in many steeples and towers. 

A night watch went wandering with him up and down the avenues 
of white luminous walls. He was a man who had been well educated, 
and who had seen much of the world. 

" There is one statue that has been left out," said the old officer, 
"and it should stand here in the Court of Honor, for it might 
represent the best of all for which the world can hope ! " 

" Whose ? " asked our venerable Quaker. 

" Pestalozzi's, the founder of the public schools. He taught that 
education stands for character, and not for a cunning brain, and that 
character means the brotherhood and peace of the world." 



NIGHT IN THE COURT OF HONOR, 



3*5 



" He was right," said our friend. " The new education should be 
that of peace. It should follow the spirit of the White City here, 
where all is harmony and unity, and all races are families of the same 
common family. Our schools, our churches, our societies, should all 





GERMAN BUILDING. 

enter into this new education. It will be one day the greatest 
teaching in the world." 

'■ It seems as though sometimes, when I wander around these 
streets at night," said the watch, "that I see the world in a new light 



3 l6 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




JAVANESE FIDDLER, FROM THE MIDWAY. 

like this: From Christ to Pestalozzi ; from Pestalozzi to the White 
City; from the White City to the peace federations of republics; 
and from that to the unity and brotherhood of all men. The next 
century will be a missionary age in the large sense of the world." 

"And its watchword must be Disarm! 

" Then humanity must build again." 

" The movement must begin in the schools," answered the old 
Quaker. " The new heroes of war must be those only who fought for 



NIGHT IN THE COURT OF HONOR. 



319 




ADMINISTRATION BUILDING BY NIGHT. 



principle and peace. I am glad that I came here, and that I have 
been allowed to spend the night here. Stand here in the silence and 
look around you. It is the beginning of a new world. A new 
movement will follow it ; I can feel it. I rejoice over it as though 
it had already been ! " 



When the Marlowes returned home, the Folk-Lore Society sum- 
moned them to answer the questions that they had entrusted to them 
and especially to Mr. Manton Marlowe, their president. There was 
a full meeting of the Society, to hear Mr. Marlowe's report. He 
answered three of the questions in the manner that we have suggested 
in the book : — 



3 2 ° 



ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE WHITE CITY. 




INDIA BUILDING, 



That the most amusing thing that he saw at the Fair was the 
merriment of the crowds in the Street of Cairo, over the Eastern 
camel riders ; 

That the most useful thing was the Philadelphia Working Man's 
house ; 

That the grandest thing was the White-Bordered Flag in the 
Court of Honor. n -, Q - 

The greatest lesson of the Fair ? " * 4 O O D m 

"It was this," said Mr. Marlowe: "the agreement among the archi- 
tects and artists, that each would sacrifice his own ideals and plans to 
the harmony of the whole. The beauty of the White City is due to 
that principle, and it is a lesson for all time ! " 












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